Transcription
Paul says to Timothy, and I think it's appropriate after watching that video, in chapter 3:1, he says, "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty." When Paul is talking about the last times, you know, the end times, here he's talking about the time that we live in and also the time that he lived in. Anytime after the period of Christ, when you read Acts, you see that they talk about how they were in the times.
He says, "Look, you've seen my life." He tells this young pastor, "You saw how I was tortured. You saw how I was beat up for the sake of Jesus Christ." We got to remember that that goes on around the world, and we got to understand that a lot of persecution happens here in America. A lot of us don't get persecuted because we don't speak up. But you guys know, once you start speaking up, that's when the persecution comes.
I mean, the truth is, people in India don't have to be persecuted if they would just shut up about Jesus Christ and not stand up for what they believe. They can dodge the persecution as well. But Paul explains, "No, in the end times, it's going to be difficult." He just told Timothy, "Okay, you're a young pastor, you're just getting going here. Make sure you're patient, make sure you're loving, make sure you're gentle."
But then he goes on, and I'm sorry, he goes on in verse 2 and explains why it's going to be difficult. In verse 2, he says, "For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. Avoid such people."
Okay, first I was going to go to verse 9, but I realized I'm not going to be able to cover all that. Then my plan was to get to verse 5, and I found out last service I can't even cover that. So don't get panicked if we don't finish it because I don't plan on it now.
But he explains how people are going to act in the end times, and he says, "Understand that it's going to be really hard because people are going to love themselves. They're going to love money. They're going to be proud. They're going to be arrogant." He lists off these 19 different characteristics of the way people will be in the end times.
As I read them to you, we all just kind of nodded our heads, right? Like, "Yep, yep, yep, yep, check, check, check, I got that one, that one, that one," and on and on and on. He says it's going to be so common, but you have to understand that what he's talking about is within the church. He's not talking about the world; it's always been that way in the world.
But he goes, "Understand what's sad is this is going to happen in the church." He explains that there are going to be people who have some sort of form or some sort of appearance of godliness or some sort of form of spirituality, but they'll deny its power. Paul's warning this pastor, he goes, "Watch out because this is what people are going to be after."
Later, he says, "In fact, they're going to find churches that'll tickle their ears. They're going to find churches that'll say what they want to hear because they love themselves and they want these things for themselves." So they won't put up with sound doctrine; they'll go to these other places.
He's just warning this young pastor, "Be careful because I'm not just talking about a few individuals. I'm not talking about these crazy, evil, you know, strange, unique individuals in the world. I'm saying people, people in general are going to be this way, people within the church."
That's a scary part; that's the way people will be inside of the church, and we have to be so careful of this. But the key, I think, of understanding all of these 19 characteristics is understanding this first one. He says, "Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty, for people will be lovers of self."
Why is it going to be so hard to live out our faith? He says, "Because so many people, the vast majority of people, will love themselves. They're not lovers of God; they're lovers of self." Many people will attend church not because they love God, but because they love themselves and they're hoping God will do something for them. It's not out of a love for God; it's out of a love for self.
I heard one commentator say this, and I love this phrase. He talks about how, you know, if you're lovers of self, then all these other things will happen. He says, "It's the sewer pipe, lovers of themselves; it's the sewer pipe out of which all the other garbage flows."
In other words, look, if you love yourself, of course you're going to love money because you'll start thinking, "You know what? I love myself, and so I want to indulge myself." So I want money because I want stuff for me. Why do people love money? It's because they love themselves.
Why are people proud? Because they love themselves; they think they're lovable. You know, why are they arrogant? Why are they abusive? Why are people abusive? You know, when we make an abusive statement towards someone else, it's because you're thinking about yourself. You're not thinking about loving them.
Haven't there been times when some things come out of your mouth and almost surprises you that you could actually say something like that to someone else? Why? Because at that moment, you're loving yourself so much. You're just about defending yourself; you're just about making yourself feel good. Why? Because it's all about you.
You're a lover of yourself, disobedient to parents, abusive, ungrateful. All this, he goes, comes out of this sewer pipe called loving yourself. You know people who really love themselves? You guys know people who love themselves? Yeah, it's a good thing we're not that way, right?
See, here's the struggle in all of this. Paul is listing characteristics that are so common, so common, and it's going to be so popular. For some reason, I was trying to figure out when this starts, but somehow in our minds, we all struggle with this idea that if everyone, if the vast majority is doing it, it can't be that wrong.
I think it starts from grade school. You don't want to be the weird kid, right? Sorry if you were, but you know, it's just that whole idea of, "I want to be one of those that fits in with the group. I don't want to be that weird person."
It carries on into junior high, even though everyone's a weird person in junior high. Then you get to high school, but it's that whole, "Man, I don't want to be that one weird person, that one odd person, that strange." There's something about, "Well, everyone's doing this, so it makes it okay."
We never quite grow out of it, and it's so dangerous. It's so dangerous because Paul says, "Look, this is the way people are going to be, people outside the church, people inside the church, the vast majority." Somehow, we always feel this sense of, "This isn't that bad because everyone is doing it."
It can't be that bad because everyone, even within the church. I see people call themselves Christians, and they do this, they do this, they do this. So we somehow feel a confidence, a strength in numbers, when in reality, we should feel extremely insecure in numbers.
Because when in the history of this world have the majority been right? It's always been about a few individuals that have been able to stand down. That's why Paul's telling Timothy, "Man, this is going to be a fight. Do you understand that people are going to be this way, not just outside the church but inside the church?"
They're going to call themselves Christians, have some sort of form of godliness, but they're not really going to do it. Are you going to be a part? See, because the Bible tells me that there's this wide, wide, massive, huge road, and many are going to find it, and it heads to destruction.
He goes, "But then there's this narrow, narrow road that leads to life, and few will find it." Paul's saying, "Timothy, you got to understand this is not going to get any better. You get in for a fight; get ready for a fight because the majority of the people, even within the church, are going to be heading down this road and having some form of godliness."
He's not talking about atheists here; he's not talking about people that are saying, "Screw God, I don't want any of this." He's talking about people that will call themselves Christians and say that they're believers, but you can look at their lives and see that there's no power in it. There's no power of sanctification; they're not really changed.
He goes, "Man, avoid these types of people. It's going to get really, really difficult because the majority is going to go down this road." Yet, when has the majority been right? I mean, go back to the children of Israel. Why did they have to wander in the desert all those years and die off?
Because only like a couple of people believed. Only two spies came back and said, "Oh no, no, we can." I believe in God, and no one else believed in that. He said, "You know what? I'm just going to let you guys wander in the desert till you all die."
How many people fit in the ark? How many people were right and fit in that ark? What was the percentage? What do you think the percentage was of the narrow road there? Paul's saying, "Look, listen, Timothy, people are going to go a certain direction. You're going to be tempted to go in this direction, and people will live this way."
"But you, you're a man of God; you don't go there." He goes, "But it's going to be hard because people are going to be lovers of themselves." There are patterns, you know, like someone was reading. I was so good, and I don't remember who, but he talked about how we don't want to conform to the pattern of this world.
It's true that, in general, Christians do pretty good with that. "Let's not conform to the pattern of this world." But there's also a pattern in the church. There's a pattern of American churchgoers, and we just figure, "Well, they are all churchgoers, and they all do this; that must be right."
Paul's warning is, "Be careful; it's going to be difficult in the last days because people, churchgoers that have a semblance or they look like godly people, they look like they call themselves Christians. He goes, they're going to love themselves just like everyone else."
In fact, lovers of self, that first phrase, did you even know that was a sin? You hear about that spoken about a whole lot? I'm worried about loving myself too much. In fact, it's something that's so common and so popular that it's even encouraged.
There's a problem with you if you don't love yourself enough. I was thinking about this yesterday for some reason as I'm putting this together. A song pops into my head. You ever hear a song that you've been singing your whole life, or you just remember it from childhood, and yet you never really thought about the words?
You just sang it, you know? The song pops into my head as I'm, because I think it's because of this verse. I just finally realized, "Wow, that's what it says." It wasn't some weird, raunchy band. Whitney Houston, remember? Many of us slow danced to her songs.
It was "The Greatest Love of All." Remember that song? We've all heard that. The greatest, you know, and at the very end, you know how in the very end where it just comes to that climax? She goes, "It's easy to achieve." Then what does she say? "Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all."
Did you ever know that? I never realized that's what she said. I was thinking, "Wait, does she say this?" Then I looked it up online. That's a song, "The Greatest Love of All." This is the greatest love of all, and it's easy to achieve. You got that right; I didn't even have to work at that one.
But learning to love yourself, that's the greatest love of all. Yet Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." When you think about it, loving yourself is the opposite of love. God says to love him the most.
He says, "I want you to love me most." From the very beginning, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind." Every single thing that's about you should just be consumed with this burning love for God, not a love for self.
He says, "But watch out because in the end times, people, man, they're not going to be lovers of God." I mean, the number one most important command God the Father said it, you know, and Jesus said it. He goes, "The greatest love, the most important love is that you love God."
This is the greatest command: love him with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind. He's saying, "Look, at the end times, he goes, man, they're going to be lovers of self. They're going to be lovers of pleasure; they're not going to be lovers of God."
I want us to evaluate this thing and really evaluate, "Man, am I a lover of God or am I a lover of self?" Why am I in this room? Is it because I'm crazy about me? I've heard people say this, and you've probably heard it too. People say, "You know what? But the Bible says," and I've heard this from a lot of Christians.
"The Bible says love your neighbor as yourself." So they go, "You know what? I don't think I love myself enough, and if I don't love myself enough, how am I going to love my neighbor as myself? So I'm just going to work on loving me more."
Have you heard that before? Where people say, "You know what? I just feel like I have to love myself more. I'm depressed right now, so I must not love myself enough." When the truth is, those people who want to keep talking about how they need to love themselves more, talk about that.
Those are actually the people that are most infatuated with themselves. In fact, they can't talk about anyone else except themselves. They'll call you on the phone and say, "Let's get together, and let's talk about me and how miserable I am and how I can love me more because I don't love myself enough. Can you come help me?"
Then when I'm done with you, I'm going to call someone else, and we're going to talk about me. You guys understand that the most depressed people on this planet are also the most self-centered. They can't get their minds off of their own problems, their own issues, themselves. They can't think about someone else.
You guys, it's a horrible trap. Self-centeredness leads to misery. Self-love leads to misery. How many people who love themselves are truly happy, are truly fulfilled? You'll work yourself into a depression if you are all about you. It's just going to happen.
Then you'll get mad at yourself because you love yourself so much, and you don't want to be that way. These words of God, it's not to destroy our lives. The Bible's very clear. God, the creator, gives us these commands so that we can have life. That's why Jesus came.
He says, "In this road of loving yourself and learning to love yourself, it is not the greatest love of all." It'll make you miserable. Having said that, I love being me. I do, okay? I'm just going to be honest with you right now. If you said you could be anyone on Earth, I would say, "I'll be Francis Chan."
I love being me. I really do. I think it's great. I would rather be me than you any day, any day. I'm just laying it out there. But why? Why do I love being me? I love being me because I was crucified with Christ, and it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
You know why I love being me? It's because when Jesus Christ came into my life, when the Holy Spirit came into my life, he really started to make some changes in me. He got me to stop talking about me so much, and he got me to not just be consumed about me so much.
See, because I actually don't like Francis Chan; I love Christ inside of me. That's what I love. I love the changes. I love every day, you know, the more and more I can. I'm not saying I'm there. I mean, there are times I get off the phone, and I'm like, "Man, that was all about me. I'm sick of myself. I don't want to be about myself."
But I love this adventure of having God come into my body and me becoming this new creation and being less and less self-absorbed and saying, "I don't really care about Francis." I'm starting to care more and more about these other people. I'm caring more about his agenda and his desires, and as I do that, there's a fulfillment in life.
It feels good to love, doesn't it? Aren't there just... I was just talking to some people who just got back from the Bay Area last weekend, you know, just building and helping these people in the inner city. I mean, they're just so fired up.
I was talking to one of the guys on the phone on the way home. He's like, "Oh, it's the greatest trip ever, man. Everyone was working so hard. You know, we're just exhausted, but it just felt good. It felt good. We're laughing, we're serving, we're helping."
It feels good to love. It feels so good to get out of yourself and not love yourself but to start loving other people. Like Philippians 2 says, to consider others as more important than yourself. It's a good thing.
That's what he's saying here. But he goes, "Be careful because at the end times, people are going to love themselves." I love the way this one commentator put it. He says this: "In this universe, there's God, there are people, and there are things. We should worship God, love people, and use things. But if we start worshiping ourselves, others will ignore God and start loving things and using people. This is the formula for a miserable life, yet it characterizes many people today."
I love that he just nails it. He goes, "Man, that's a recipe for disaster. You start loving stuff." And why do we love stuff? See, after he says people will be lovers of themselves, the next phrase he goes, "And they'll be lovers of money."
Why do we love money? Why are we lovers of money? Because we love ourselves. Why do I love all this stuff? Because I love me, and me enjoys spending the stuff on me. I love myself, and so let me indulge. He says, "You know what? Everyone's going to be this way. People are going to be so into stuff, so materialistic, that we just think, 'Well, everyone's that way, so no big deal.'"
People in Noah's day could have said that; they did say that. "Come on, everyone lives this way." Paul's telling Timothy, "Everyone's going to live this way, so don't walk out of this room going, 'Oh man, those people.' Look at yourself and go, 'Man, I don't want to be swept up. I don't want to be caught up in this.'"
I know the Bible says in the last days people are going to love, love, love their stuff, and they'll love their stuff, and they'll use people to get their stuff. It shows that they really don't love God; they really love things. They love these possessions.
Here's the danger: if we love ourselves and love money more than we love others, be careful. Evaluate if this is you. We will get to a point where we will be more concerned about our standard of living than we are about others living.
I'm going to say it again: we can get to a point where we are more concerned about our standard of living than we are about other human beings actually living. Let's face it, no one in this room is worried about starving to death. What's the worst that could happen? You lose everything, and then what? You go to a food pantry in town and then go to the park and drink water?
We're not worried about starving. We're not worried about living. I mean, the Bible, when it talks about not worrying, and someone read that verse, you know, about seeking first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you, that's talking about people that were scared, "I might not be able to eat tomorrow."
Jesus said, "Don't even worry about that." We're not worried about those things; that's a given. We live in America. Who's going to starve to death here in America? You just got to work hard to starve to death here in America. You just got to say no to everyone that's wanting to pass you food.
You know, no to all the rescue missions, no to all the food pantries. "I'm not even going to go to the park and drink out of that drinking fountain." Meanwhile, there are people that are walking miles and miles every night, moms that are staying up all night walking for miles to get clean water for their kids and hopefully bring back this stuff.
I mean, I'm reading those stats, those stats on your water bottle, the stats on those, you know, why do we have you focus on these things? We're going, "Man, you got to understand how people live." We got to be more consumed and concerned about them living than we are about our standard of living.
Because that's what we worry about. We all worry about money to some degree. You said, "No, I don't worry." You worry a little bit; we all do to some degree. But again, we're not worried about living; we're worried about a standard of living.
We're worried, "Well, what if I lose my house? God forbid! What if I can't own my own house? That means the whole time on Earth I was renting. That means at the end of my life, when everything burns, I'm not going to have a house that'll burn."
You know, it's just a standard of living. We're worried about, "What about this car? What about that car? What if I don't get to drive this type? What about when I'm older, and maybe the home that I get put in isn't as nice as the one I'd like to be put in? Or maybe this, maybe that?"
It's all about standard of living, and I just don't want us to fool ourselves thinking that we don't love money or we don't love a certain type of lifestyle. Because we're not... We'll say things like, "Well, I got to feed the family." Come on, anyone can feed their family in America. You're not worried about that.
We're worried about standard of living, and that's why I'm going, "Man, Lord, I get caught up. I get sucked up in this thing, and I don't want to be this way." Because I know all throughout history, there have always been those few individuals that have stood out and said, "No, I'm not going to fall into that. I'm not going to fall into this."
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, and to say, "You know what, God? I don't want to be that." You know, we can test ourselves. You know how when you lose something, that's when you realize how much you loved it or love that person?
You know, early on in life, when you start going out with someone and they dump you, we've all been dumped, right? Then you just start bawling. Why? Because you love that person, right? Then later in life, it gets even more devastating when some of you had your own spouse leave you, and you lost your spouse, or maybe they passed away, and it's just devastating.
I mean, why are funerals so devastating? Because here's someone we love so much, and they're gone. Because when you love something, then you lose it, it causes a lot of grief. Do you love stuff? Do you love your money? When you lose it, does it bug you at all?
See, in the end times, people are going to be really just consumed. Like, that's all they can think about, "Man, I'm not going to be able to have this." I'm not going to be able to have, and they'll be so concerned about that. Why? Because they love themselves, and they love their money.
Sometimes we can get sick to our stomachs when we lose something, a possession, a bank account, a savings account. The stocks drop, just sick to your stomach. Why? Lovers of self, lovers of money. They're going to be proud. The word proud is the word; it means a bragger.
It's the one-upper, the one that has to get his word in about himself or herself. He says they'll be arrogant. It's just pride; it's about me. People get so arrogant nowadays in the church that even when we confront them on sin, you know, like, "Wait, you can't leave your wife."
What is the comment? The comment is, "Well, God would want me to be happy." So it doesn't matter that the word of God says because God would want me to be happy. Of course, he would want you to be happy. I mean, he's consumed with you because you're so great, right?
God would want me to be happy. I wonder if he does anything else other than worry about you and your happiness. Yeah, forget about his holiness; forget about his commands. It's about you and your... I mean, we get so arrogant as to thinking, "You know what? It's about me."
Then this world revolves around me. In fact, God revolves around me, and he's concerned that I'm happy. So yeah, I broke this sin and that sin, but no big deal. He knows he wants me happy because it's about me.
I come to this church, see? I love me and everything he can do for me rather than just be passionately in love with this God, this God who's done so much for us, who's so amazing. He's been so patient. They'll be abusive.
I talked about that, how, man, we say certain things to other people because we love ourselves. Then it says they'll be disobedient to parents. At times, the vast majority of people under their parents are going to be disobedient to them. They're not going to respect them.
Again, like I said, this is just the popular thing. I mean, what kid respects their parents, obeys their parents? We kind of fall in this trap going, "Okay, so oh, my kid flipped me off. How cute." You know, it's just this whole, "Wait a second. We can't live that way. We can't let that happen in our homes."
That's the end times mentality, and we can't fall into that. I debated on whether or not to show you this video. I'm just going to show you a short clip of it, and we have edited it to death and leaped out and everything else. I mean, it was 15 minutes long, but it's only like 2 minutes long now, so this is the PG version of just, you know, our youth pastor went to a couple of the local schools and just interviewed kids and didn't show their faces so they can remain anonymous so you don't beat them when they get home.
But I'll just let you watch it. This is just a short section, and this is a clean section for the most part. So this is just... this is the world we live in.
"Hey, can we interview you guys real quick? What, uh, we're just doing this project. We're not going to show your faces or anything, but we just want to get your responses on the audio part of the video. All right, so the first question I got is just, what's the craziest thing that you guys would say goes on at this school that people, like parents, have no clue goes on at this school?"
"Doing it in the bathroom, getting bathroom by a girl."
"Yeah, that's what's up. Does that happen a lot?"
"Yeah, it happens a lot."
"Yeah, it's a lot."
"You know what? It happens a lot."
"Yeah, yeah. What about, what about like drug use at the school? How big of a percentage would you say of people use drugs, like smoke weed?"
"It's not that much, probably half of the school."
"Probably not that much, half of the school."
"School 45%?"
"Yeah, like not in school, like before they go to school, they probably do it up."
"Yeah, but not in school. What would be the craziest thing that like your friends, like the people you hang out with, would not absolutely would not want their parents to know about them?"
"Like that they do, like pills."
"Yeah, Norcos, Adderall, something like that, Vicodin, morphine, oxy, oxycotton, X bars, Somas, or Norcos, different kinds of pills and stuff like that."
"Just, it's just the pills, X bars, like Xanax, Vicodin, like crystal meth, weed. They shoot up heroin in the bathroom and do ecstasy. There's drug deals, like deals like during class and stuff."
"Yeah, like people like to break the law a lot at school."
"Yeah, it's pretty intense."
"Yeah, yeah. Just like one thing that your friends are hiding from their parents, like everything, like doing drugs, having sex, drinking, partying, just like bad things."
"Yeah, I agree with her."
"That's sending naked pictures."
"I'm so serious."
"People send naked pictures during class."
"Is it bad text messages?"
"Bad text messages."
"Is it through like of themselves? They send naked pictures of themselves to other people?"
"Yeah, to random people too."
"Random people."
"Yeah, okay. What about with you guys? Like what would be one of the things that you definitely would not want your parents knowing about you?"
"My family, we're Christian, and like I'm not supposed to like cuss or like drink or something like that."
"Yeah, like that, like cussing and drinking. I don't do drugs, which I don't like that."
"But yeah, about you, what's a question? I don't like what would you not want your parents to find out you did?"
"Sax."
"But you guys would say your parents definitely don't know."
"They definitely don't know about the drugs and the fights and everything."
"Cool, all right, thanks guys."
Again, you're watching the PG version. Isn't it great that our kids are growing up in that environment? You guys, it's the world we live in. It's the world we live in; it's the reality of it all. It's the end times. It's going to be this way.
You want some good news? That's what you're here for, right? To hear the good news? Good news: "Upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not stand against it." The good news is God's church will always stand, and there will always be men and women who will stand.
The good news is even though the world's against you, and even though Satan is against you, and even your own flesh is against you, the Bible says, "Greater is he who is in you than he who is of the world." There's a serious power here within us, within my being, that the spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead, he lives inside of me.
I can look at all that stuff and go, "That's fine, but I'm not going down. Are you? I'm not backing off. I'll fight this thing to the end." That's why Paul writes to Timothy. He goes, "Look at me. I'm about to die, and I pulled it off. I lived through these times. You saw how I was beaten; you saw how I was abused, but I took it all."
And guess what? "I'm going to do right now." He goes, "There's a crown of righteousness that's waiting for me, and I'm going to be there." He goes, "So you remember these words coming out of my mouth. He goes, 'No regrets. I'm fighting this thing, and I'm going to fight it till the end.'"
The good news is, yes, absolutely, the youth and everything, it's going, it's getting worse, worse, worse, worse, worse. But that doesn't mean we pull our kids away from that and everything else. No, because the truth is that there are believers who, in the midst of all that, they're standing.
Man, this is what I do. I go around; I speak to high school students, college students all around the world. You know what I'm finding? I'm finding a passion for God that I've never seen before. In all my years of doing ministry, I've never been more encouraged about the future of the church than I am right now.
Because as people are getting more evil, there is a church; there is a remnant, and there are these believers that will do anything for Jesus Christ. There's a new generation of believers, and a lot of these college students that are saying, "You know, if church is just about us attending and not trying to swear too much and do the whole church attendance thing and let's grow a big church, they go, 'I don't want any part of that anymore.'"
"But if the church is really going to live this out and really die for Jesus Christ and really live against the world, I want to be a part of something like that." The good news is that there are people who are filled with the Holy Spirit, and they're living this out.
I was speaking to a group of high school students, thousands of them, the other day. One of the counselors, because I was talking for Compassion International and talking about sponsoring kids and even getting high school kids to sponsor kids overseas, this lady goes, "Oh, you got to meet one of my girls."
So I go, and I meet this high school girl. "How old are you?" "16 years old." I go, "Well, tell me about her. Why do you want me to meet her?" This lady goes, "Oh, she sponsors kids." I'm like, "Right on! So you're 16 years old, and you're already sponsoring kids. How many kids do you sponsor?"
"14."
"14 kids at 30 bucks each. How do you do that as a high school student?"
"Well, in the summers, I work more. I work, you know, 60, 70 hours at lifeguard, and then I wait tables, and then I work all year long."
So while every other 16-year-old is saving up money for a car because they love themselves, you're saving children. See, that's not where my mind was when I was 16. I'm telling you, there's a generation that's rising up, and they're saying, "You know what? We're going to stand for this stuff."
We don't just want to attend church. We don't want to just... Man, I'm telling you, it's just a very encouraging time to be a believer amidst the evil and everything else because we have the Holy Spirit of God in us, and there are young people who believe that and understand that.
Just like the people in India right now that are standing up and saying, "Go ahead, I'll stay here. Go ahead, kill me. I'm not going to deny Jesus Christ." In the same way, we do that to a different degree here in America by abstaining from some of these things, running from some of these things, and being willing to stand up for Jesus Christ.
The church isn't going to die. Jesus promised that the gates of hell will storm against it, but it'll stand firm. She'll be there, and I'm going to be a part of that. I mean, the end's written, right? The end's written, and in the end, the church is there.
In the end, the church is worshiping forever and ever, and I'm going to be amongst that group of people, and I pray that you will be too. I mean, you understand why we do the things we do? It's because we don't want you to become lovers of yourself.
Why is it that we talk about the inner city? Why is it that we talk about, "Man, maybe we can build a rescue mission in the San Fernando Valley for those people that are homeless?" Maybe we just have church inside the rescue mission, so all week long we're just helping people, and then we'll push the beds aside on Sunday.
Maybe it'll be less comfortable. You know why? Why is it that over on Tiada, we don't want to build a big church building? Instead, let's build Children's Hunger Fund, and maybe some days we'll have to sit in the warehouse, and we'll sit on sacks of beans rather than on chairs.
Why? Because we don't want to be lovers of self; we want to be lovers of people. Why would we consider, you know, why don't we just sit down on the grass? You know what? Because someone else is starving us. Someone, all these people are dying of diarrhea from unclean water.
That's just so unfathomable to us, and for us to say, "We're trying to teach you to say, you know what? It's okay. It's good to be a lover of people." See, I don't want to be a person that says, "Well, I wouldn't want Francis Chan to have to sweat and sit in the sun because I love Francis so much."
"I wouldn't want Francis to get wet in the rain. Oh, because he's so important. I would want Francis to sit on a sack of rice or a sack of beans and actually have to do some manual labor." We need Francis to sit in a nice air-conditioned room in a nice little chair and everything else.
Why? Because we so value Francis. I don't want to be about that. I want to be a person where I said, "God saved me from myself. I don't want to love myself like this. I want to be a lover of people, a lover of you."
The wonderful thing is that that's what Jesus came to do, is to save us, save us from ourselves, from loving ourselves and being consumed with ourselves, and saying there's a better way to live. There's a better way to live. Believe it or not, it's actually when you lose your life that you'll find it.
I know it sounds crazy, but you lose your life, you're going to find it. You save your life, you're going to lose it. Everything's backwards. Jesus came in, and he says everything's backwards. The way you guys think, it's all backwards.
You think if you love yourself more and more and more that you'll be happier and happier and happy? He goes, "No, that's not the way I designed you. You learn to be a lover of God; you learn to be a lover of people, and pretty soon you'll live that fulfilled life."
It's the thief that came to destroy and try to mess you guys up and thinking all this stuff is so great. You guys know God is great. Loving God is great. Loving people is great, and that was Jesus's life.