Today with Jeff Vines

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How can I then change course? How can I reset?
Let's look at his example. Paul realized what he was
doing was not working. He was drifting. There was no
peace in his life. He wasn't accomplishing the goal. So
he changed gears and he decided to head in a
different direction. Now he gives us a roadmap how to

(00:20):
reset our lives.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's beautiful Today, Today, Today, Today with Jeff Fines, pasta
apologist and Bible Tea Chad.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
My name is Aaron, and you're listening to Today with
Jeff Finds. This week, we're revisiting some older messages from
Pastor Jeff from his series called Reset. It's all about
resetting our life and resetting our connection with God. We
start the series with a look at the Apostle Paul
and why he wanted to make change and live with

(00:57):
the risk as a true follower of Christ. Begin with
Pastor Jeff.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
You know the first model airplane that I received for
a birthday present. I tried to put it together, and
I'm not very gifted at doing this. My son to
Landy can put anything together and take it apart again.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
But God did not gift.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
To me in such a manner and so I had
this thing on the table. The glue was coming apart,
all the pieces were in the wrong places, the decals
were crooked. And my father walked along while I was
trying to do this, and he said, son, what are
you doing. I said, well, I'm trying to put this
model airplane together that I got for my birthday. He said, well, son,
it looks more like a helicopter. And I said, well,

(01:50):
help me. What am I to do?

Speaker 4 (01:51):
He said, You're in such disarray.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
The best thing you can do is just wipe the
slate clean and begin again, start all over, because you
cannot get there from where you are right now. We
know the definition of insanity to be doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Probably the most known definition of any word, but the

(02:13):
least practice. Because we seem intent.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
On doing exactly what we know we shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
The best thing that we can do during this season
is to take a look at the way we've been
living our lives and make the changes that we need
to make to start over. And if you're honest with yourself,
your life to a great degree is in disarray. The
pieces aren't where they ought to be. It looks totally
different from what you really want to achieve with your life.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
Most of us spend our days rushing around from here
to there, from here to there.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Then we fall in bed at night totally exhausted, having
accomplished little or nothing.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
So what is the answer to that?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
And part of the reason we fall into bed exhausted
is because we've allowed the world system, the order that
you and I live, to dictate the manner in which
we live our lives. But think about it, just.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
For a moment.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Under whose influence does the Bible tell us this world
order or pattern exists.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
The Bible tells us in one.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
John five nineteen that we know we are the children
of God, but the whole world lies under the control
or the sway of the evil one.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
What does that mean? It means this order the way
we are ordering our lives. It's dictated to us.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
We are following a flow that leads not to life,
but leads to frustration. In fact, Jesus told the disciples
in John ten ten the thief comes only to still
and kill and destroy. I've come that they may have
life and have it to the full. So if you
want to live again, it's a perfect opportunity to step

(03:49):
out of the rhythm and the flow that you've been
in for so long. That's indicative of the world system
that is governed, that is ruled by one that is
trying to destroy you. So make sure that you don't
miss the opportunity to make some changes, to get out
of these rhythms and to start living your life in

(04:10):
a way that is extraordinary.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
A good example of what I'm trying.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
To communicate here is that a few years ago, my family,
including my mother and father in law, went to mass
and Nutt in Virginia. We were gonna go there on
a vacation holiday. We got to walk through the home
of Thomas Jefferson, and we got to go tubing down
the Shenandoah River. Now we were looking forward to this event.
We had Delanyancy on with us as well, and so

(04:36):
we get in these tubes and we're going to flow
down this river.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
The unfortunate reality was.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Though, that there had been a lack of rain during
the rainy season, so there was only about a foot
of water in this river, and it wasn't really free flowing.
When we got into tubes. The tubes themselves almost scraped
the bottom of the river. We were told that at
the end of this journey that there would be a
beautiful waterfall that we could slide down a little bit
of whitewater rafting.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
But Sion and I, which were in the set, who
were in the same tube, learned.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Very quickly that if you didn't stroke your arms, you
would just sit still and drift over to the side
of the river. And somehow, since there had been no rain,
all the animal dung had been collected at the sides
of the river. So if you don't flap your arms
and try to paddle down the stream, you would automatically

(05:26):
drift into this manure, this dung. And it was a horrible,
atrocious experience, and most people were having that exact experience.
Sion and I decided we weren't gonna have any of that,
so we just started paddling our arms as fast as
we could. We got down and after about two hours
of rigorous physical activity, we experienced about thirty seconds of

(05:46):
whitewater rafting.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
What is the point of the story. The point is,
if you want.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
To get somewhere, you're gonna you're gonna have to give
some effort. You won't just evolve or drift in to
a desired.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Goal or object.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
And if your goal and objective is to live an
extraordinary life, to get out of this rut that you've
been in, to make changes in your life so that
you can actually feel that something good is happening, You're
gonna have to You're gonna have to make effort. You
won't drift into it. A few months ago, a young
lady in tears came to me and said, this is
not working. Pastor Jeff, I said, what is not working?

(06:22):
She said, life, I'm not accomplishing anything. I'm not improving
in any areas of my life that really matter to me.
I'm overcome by the tyranny of the urgent. That's a
phrase that was coined by Dawson Trumpman of the Navigator.
So I knew immediately she was well read. She said,
but my life is just spinning around. I'm not a

(06:43):
better mother, I'm not a better wife, my career is
going nowhere.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
And worse of all, there's really no progress.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
In my spiritual life, in my walk with Jesus, my
knowledge of Scripture, my knowledge of God, my spiritual growth
is experiencing an incredible stagnation. I find that I'm gossiping,
that I'm angry, that I am self centered, that peace
and joy are only peripheral.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
I just have small, short moments.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
But overarching, overwhelming in my life is this sense of
frustration and discontent.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
Now we're in a new series.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
It's called Reset, and I'm going to introduce you to
some people who came to a crossroads in their lives
and they said, you know what, I can't keep living
the way that I'm living, this frustration, discontent that's going
everywhere here and there and accomplishing nothing, especially not the
ultimate goal of my life. And they had an experience
with God and they made changes. And these changes are

(07:42):
gold to us because in reading the narrative or the
story in scripture, we can glean these principles that we
can put into our lives that then will change us
from mediocrity to extraordinary living.

Speaker 4 (08:00):
So when I think.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
About all the characters and narratives we're going to talk
about over the next few weeks, I'll get excited and
I just want.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
To skip ahead.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
But let's pause and begin with perhaps the most influential
person of the first three hundred years of Greco Roman history,
the apostle Paul a Roman citizen.

Speaker 4 (08:19):
A Hebrew by birth, educated in a.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Greek city, and in Philippians three, he comes to his
own crossroads. He realizes, here's my goal. This is where
I want to get to. Here's where I am. But
the things I'm doing they're not working. They're not going
to achieve the goal. I'm in the middle of insanity.
I'm doing the same thing over and over thinking I'll
get a different result. It's not working now. The apostle

(08:44):
Paul's goal was to reach God. He had a tremendous passion,
an overwhelming passion to meet and to know God and
to be accepted before God. Unfortunately, the patheage was one
of religion. He truly believed that he could just be
good if he could keep all the righteous ritual laws,

(09:08):
somehow that would qualify him for acceptance and appreciation and
significance before the God of the universe. But then he
comes to the end of himself and he says, you know,
it's not working because I can never be good enough.
There's never enough righteous credentials to put me in good
standing with God. In Philippians three, the text we're going
to be concentrating on, he actually lists his credentials. He

(09:30):
says in verse five of chapter three of Philippians, I
was circumcised on the eighth day.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
Man I did what all.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Good Jewish boys do. I'm of the people of Israel.
I'm of the people of God his chosen ones. I'm
of the tribe of Benjamin. When the Israelites would go
out to war, the Benjamites would lead them, and everyone
say after thee O Benjamin. So the apostle Paul said,
I even let us out in conquest. He says, I'm
a Hebrew of Hebrews, which meant that even though we've

(09:57):
been dispersed, I've always kept the culture in layanguage of
the Hebrew people. He says, in regard to the law
a pharisee, I am super good. I have reams and
reams of paper describing the kind of religious activities I
should do, and I do them all. He said, I
am so zealous for God that I persecuted the church.
When someone came along and told me that what I

(10:19):
was doing was wrong and presented the antithesis of what
I believed to be right as far as our approach
to God, he said, I decided to persecute them to
close their mouths to silence them. And then he said,
as far as righteousness is based on the law, I
am faultless. So he comes to the conclusion that I've

(10:39):
got all these recommendations or all of these things, all
these attributes rather that are part of my life. And
yet I'm doing all these things and being all these things,
and it's not working. I'm not good enough. The standard
is too high. And the more I get or to
know God, the more I realize I need something else.
I need something outside of myself. In fact, he says

(11:02):
in Romans chapter seven, I don't even keep the moral
aw that I know and agree that is good. My passion,
he says, to do the right thing has very little
to do with other desires.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
That stir within my heart and being. And in Romans.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Chapter seven, verse eighteen, he says, for I have a
desire to do what is good, I cannot carry it
out though, for I do not do the good I
want to do, but the evil that I don't want
to do, that's what I keep on doing. Paul says,
I've got to try something else. I got to push
the reset button. This is not working. I have to
start over. I cannot get there from here. Now, let
me just pause for a second. Paul is an older man,

(11:40):
and that's why I find it amazing that he's willing
to reset his life. The older you get, the less
willing you are to take risks, even if those if
the current pattern of living is destructive or disintegrating. There's
a saying that says, better the devil I know than
the devil. I don't know my life. It's tough, but

(12:01):
I don't want it to get tougher. At least I
know how to deal with this toughness. At least that's
what we convince ourselves. So the other day I rode
my bike all the way from Upland where I live,
to our campus at San Dimas, and I was pretty
pleased with myself when I learned it was about fifteen
or sixteen miles and I had done it in round
an hour an hour and five minutes, And I thought, Wow,

(12:22):
I'm not as.

Speaker 4 (12:23):
Out of shamp as I thought I was.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
And then a couple of days later, I decided, well,
since my bike is here at the office, I'll just
tell my wife that I'll ride it home.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
No need to come and collect me. I'll ride my
bike and I rode my.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Bike from the San Dimas Campus all the way back
to Upland, and I realized about halfway in the journey
that from Upland to the Sandemas Campus it's all downhill,
and from the San Dimas Campus to Upland it's all uphill.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
Folks.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
I got to tell you, it took me about two
hours and ten minutes to make that journey, and it
took me about three or four days to recover from it.
You notice as you get older, things don't work the
way that they used to, and you're afraid it. Take
risks for fear you might do some harm to yourself.
But that's the way you're gonna live. And if you
think that you can live the same way and overcome

(13:09):
the frustration and the disappointment, it will never change. That's
why I love One of my favorite quotes comes from
Eileen Ruter, and she says, you can live on bland
food so as to avoid an ulcer, Drink notique coffee
or other stimulants. Go to bed early, stay away from nightlife,
avoid all controversial subjects so as to never give an offense.

(13:29):
Mind your own business, avoid involvement in other people's problems.
Spend money only on necessities and save all you can.
And she finishes by saying, and you can still break
your neck in the bathtub.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
And it'll serve you. Right. How true is that? How true?

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, you can play it safe, but you'll just have
a life of mediocrity and something still in the end
will get you, and you would have lived your life
achieving no great thing. The apostle Paul says, I've got
to reset my life. I've got to start again, and
it's going to require some risk, because what I really
need is a savior.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
I need somebody to rescue me.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
And in Romans chapter seven, he says, what a wretched
man I am? Who will rescue me from this body
of sin and death? And he says, thanks be to
God who delivers me through Jesus.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
Cross our Lord.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
The Apostle Paul pushed the reset button and realized that
there was someone who would save him from the law.
The law is good, but it can never save you.
It only tells you that your face is dirty. It
can't clean you up. He needs outside help, but outside agent.
And then in Romans wand he says, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel because it's the power of God that

(14:39):
brings salvation to everyone. He's saying, there is a way
to reach God, and it's not through efforts, not through religion.
It's through the receiving the acceptance of what Jesus, the.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
Son of God.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
The gift he offers you is he takes your sins
on the cross, past, present, future, forgives you and gives
you the right to come in to the presence of God.
Now we can talk a lot more about that, but
let's look at his example. Paul realized what he was
doing was not working. He was drifting. There was no

(15:13):
peace in his life. He wasn't accomplishing the goal. So
he changed gears and he decided to head in a
different direction. Now, as the greatest influencer of the first
three centuries, as the apostle, Paul opens the window of
his life and lesus look in. We notice he gives

(15:33):
us a roadmap how to reset our lives.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
That's what this series is about.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
And we began by understanding that we are called to
live an extraordinary, not a mediocre life, that we're supposed
to live a life of deep satisfaction, not frustration. And
so here's what we're going to do quickly in the
time we have left. We're gonna look at that roadmap.
We're gonna ask three questions, give three answers that leads
to three or lead to three agents of change. So

(16:03):
how can I then change course? How can I reset
and reset in a way that's going to lead to
an extraordinary life, to a sense of peace and satisfaction
and joy?

Speaker 4 (16:17):
It's beautiful? First question, what is the goal toward which
you are working?

Speaker 1 (16:22):
You look at your life and you think, well, I'm here,
I want to be there, but I'm not getting there. Well,
the first question is where's the there that you're trying
to get to?

Speaker 4 (16:30):
What are you chasing?

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Not what you think it should be, be honest, What
is truly the objective of your life?

Speaker 4 (16:38):
What are you pursuing? What are you after?

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Now again, what I'm going to give you may sound
super spiritual, but I promise you this is about the
most practical message that I've ever delivered.

Speaker 4 (16:48):
Please listen. What is the goal of your life? What
are you after?

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Most of us want a good marriage, a successful workplace,
financial security, peace, joy, a stable family, good friends, good
times with those friends, accomplishments, health and vitality. Those are
the things we want. But folks, those are actually byproducts

(17:13):
of a greater achievement. There is a greater goal. When achieved,
these things then become present realities. Unfortunately, what most of
us ended up doing is chasing the byproducts instead of
the core reality that produces them. I often tell the
story of playing Monopoly with my grandmother.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
She was ruthless.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
I won't tell you the complete story, but she would
invite me over to her house on the weekends. I
was probably in my young teens, and she would thrash
me in the game of Monopoly.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
She was very good at it.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
It was only a matter of time before she owned everything,
including the bank. And I got tired of losing so
years ago by through high school.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
Then I go off to Bible College.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
And seminary, and I learned while I'm at Bible College.
While I'm at Johnson University, I had a roommate who
was very good at Monopoly, and I learned how to play.
And I couldn't wait to get back to my grandmother's
house to just destroy her in one game of monopoly,
and I did. I came over, I said, hey, I'm
back from college, just wanted to visit. How about a
game of Monopoly, and we played and I beat my

(18:16):
grandmother so badly. I mean I owned it all, and
I was laughing the whole way through. I owned all
the little rent houses in the greenhouses, I owned the bank,
I had all the money.

Speaker 4 (18:25):
She asked for grace, I gave her none.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
And I just celebrated at the end of the game
as I had defeated Grandma. No mercy, And quickly she
took the board, folded it up, and she put it
back in the box. And she said, oh, well, everything
just goes back into the box, the cars, the houses,
the money, everything. I've never forgotten that I wanted to

(18:49):
take that monopoly board and put it on the wall
as a memorial to my victory, that every time I
walked in her house, she would be reminded that there
was a time and place where young Jeffrey, her grandson,
destroyed her in a game of Monopoly. The problem is
that game, while it's just a game, it's perhaps one

(19:12):
of the best metaphors of life. See, if you're after
everything and you're pursuing all these things, the houses and
the cars, it all goes back in the box. And
if that's what you're pursuing if you go after that,
the Bible tells us in Matthew sixteen, for what profit
isn't a man if he gains the whole world and
loses his own soul? Now, if you look at that,

(19:35):
there's another option. What is implied in the text. If
you gain the world, lose your soul. But if you
gain your soul, there's a possibility you could gain the world,
which means the soul then should be your ultimate pursuit.
Now stay with me just a moment. We're taking some
pieces and putting them into the game here and it.

(19:57):
They'll all come out in the end, but please stay
with me. I dug deep into my archives for this illustration.
I've used it a few times. It's a classic. It's
an ancient from Myra Brooks Welch. Here's how it goes.
It's a classic poem. But listening carefully to the words,
she says, twas battered and scarred. And the auctioneer thought

(20:17):
it hardly worth his while to waste his time on
the old violin, but he held it up with a smile.
One of my bid good people, he cried, who.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
Starts the bidding for me? One dollar? One dollar?

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Do I hear too, two dollars? Who makes it three?
Three dollars?

Speaker 4 (20:33):
Once? Three dollars twice? Going for three?

Speaker 2 (20:36):
But no.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Far from the back of the room, a gray bearded
man came forward and picked.

Speaker 4 (20:43):
Up the bow.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Then, wipping the dust off that old violin and tightening
up its strings, he played a melody, pure and sweet,
as sweet as the angels sing. The music ceased, and
the auctioneer, with a voice that was quite and low, said,
what now am I bid for this old violin? And
he held it up with the bow. One thousand, one thousand,

(21:06):
Do I hear too? Two thousand? Who makes it?

Speaker 4 (21:08):
Three? Three thousand? Once, three thousand, twice? Going and gone?
Said he.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
The audience cheered, but some of them cried, we just
don't understand what changed. It's worth swift, came the reply,
the touch of the master's hand. And many a man
with life out of tune, all battered and bruised with hardship,
is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd, much like that
old violin. A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,

(21:36):
a game, and he travels on. He's going once, he's going, twice,
he's going. He's almost gone. But the Master comes, and
the foolish crowd never can quite understand the worth of
a soul and the change that is wrought by the
touch of the Master's hand.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
What is the point? The point is A job is
just a job. A career is just a career.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
A marriage is just a marriage, A family a family,
A pursuit just a pursuit.

Speaker 4 (22:02):
A violin is just a violin until.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
God picks it up and the touch of the Master's hand.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
Do you see where this is going? C. S.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Lewis said, it's like this, aim at heaven and you
get earth thrown in aim at earth and you get neither.
Jesus said, seek first the Kingdom of God, and all
these other things will be added under you. So when
you push the reset button, the first thing you have
to do, don't you think it would be better to
step out of the flow that is governed by the
prince of the power of the air, Go against the.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
Grain, go upstream.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Don't do the same thing everybody else is doing, or
you're gonna get the same thing everybody else is getting.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
So then the very first question, what is the goal
of your life?

Speaker 1 (22:44):
There's only one answer that will be effective, and it's Jesus.
When you get Jesus, you get everything else thrown in. C. S.
Lewis had an incredibly sharp intellect. He was an atheist
and turned and gave his heart over to Jesus, and
in one of his works describing his conversion, he says,
you must picture me alone in that room, not after night,

(23:07):
wanting that burden in my mind.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
To be lifted even for a second.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
The steady, unrelenting approach of He whom I earnestly desired
not to meet, that which I had greatly feared, had
at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of
nineteen twenty nine, he says, I finally came in and
admitted that God was God, and I knelt and I prayed,
perhaps that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in

(23:33):
all of England. That was the last line in the
last paragraph on which he records his conversion moment, and
then the first line of the next page and next
chapter reads this, I thought I was coming to a place.
I found out I had come to a.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Person you've been listening to today with Jeff Fines. Thanks
for joining us. Next time we'll bring you the rest
of this message from Pastor Jeff.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Make a decision. Now.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
You've had the wrong goal, and that's why you're frustrated,
and that's why you're falling into bed at night. We're
retired and accomplishing nothing. Change the goal. Aim for heaven
and get earth thrown in. Push the reset button to
no Christ, to come close to God, because as I
achieved that goal, everything else will be added.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
Unto me.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
You can listen to more messages like this. Just search
for Today with Jeff Finds. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you.

Speaker 4 (24:35):
Make me Aneta.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
With every single friend.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
We'll bring this Today, Today, Today, Today with Jeff Fines