The Lifeboat - Audio
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
>> Welcome. I'm Pastor Tom Lead Pastor here at CoSpout with Church. We are super glad you're here today, but it does bring up a question and that is why are you here today? I've read some books about why people come to church and there's lots of different answers in these books. Some of the books will say things like people want to make sure that their kids are raised with really good values and they think that the church offers that. Less so now, by the way, that's actually becoming less of a reason that people come to church because a lot of times now in the world, the world thinks that the church is actually filled with really bad values, bigotry, hatred, things like that. And so that's less today, but for those of us who maybe think that this place has something to offer for our children, we come for that. A lot of people actually come to church for a powerful experience of connection with God, which is amazing and is beautiful and I think we all experience some of that when we were singing together or when we were sharing in communion together. But the idea is that this place is special in some ways and when we come here, we get, I don't know, charged up, inspired, a feeling, something that lets us know the reality that we're closer to God than we thought we were and we can sense it. Some people come to church because they want to understand God. They want to know who God is, God's nature and character. They believe that the Bible has that. They believe that a preacher, if he's properly educated, can explain that. And so people come to church because they want to understand the Bible better. They want to understand who God is better. I'm going to tell you why you're here and it's not for any of those reasons. You might think it's for some of those reasons. You might have other reasons but I'm going to tell you why it's here and it is not for any of those reasons. I'm going to start by reading what Paul thinks we're here for. This is in Colossians 1. Paul says, God rescued us from the control of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. He set us free through the Son and forgave our sins. You see, what actually has been happening? To some extent, in every person's life, your every single one of us, to one extent or another, we were sailing through life on an incredible cruise ship. The cruise ship had all the things that we thought we needed. It had every delight, every pleasure that was available to humanity. Some of us, unfortunately, did not get the upper deck. Some of us were stuck down in the steerage. We had a bad lot but at least we were floating. Some of us were sweating all day and we didn't get to enjoy the nice things. Others of us were born on third base as they say and we have had every luxury, every opportunity. It has been wonderful and we loved being on this cruise ship. Well, for every single person here, even you teens who think that you're here because your parents are making you come here, for every single one of us, what happened at one point or another is our ship hit a really, really big iceberg. Every single person here has come to this place because at one point or another, the reality that you were used to, the reality that you were a part of, it started to sink. What you thought was wonderful, what you thought was an incredible voyage is now a disaster. For some of you, that is the way that you've hurt others. For some of you, that's the way you've been hurt. For some of you, that's trauma. For some of you, that's loss. For some of you, that is a feeling of being out of control. There's a lot of different icebergs out there, but every single person here, you're here because you were on a sinking ship and the ship sank out from underneath you and you were in the water and the water, the seas were high, they were billowing and you were treading as best as you could, but the waves were too large for you and you kept going down and then bobbing back up and you weren't sure if you were going to make it. And in that moment, he rescued you from the control of the darkness around you and transferred you into the kingdom of the sun he loves. He set you free through the sun and forgave your sins. What happened is as you were bobbing down and up and down and you saw other people around you bobbing up and down and you were lost and suddenly on the horizon, a lifeboat
Transcription truncated.
Coast Bible Church, PastorTom Bennett, San Juan Capistrano, CA, www.coastbible.org