I love being in God's house, and I got to tell you, God's house is the only place that I can really dial in and focus. When I'm at home and there's some quiet time, you know what I do? I pull up my phone, start scrolling, I start looking, right? That's just what happens! But when I'm in the Church of God, it's the only place I can kind of still my soul, still my mind, and just be in God's presence. And I love that.

Now, the whole concept of “doom scrolling,” I just recently discovered it. I'm not going to lie. That was kind of after me! When we were in high school, Vine was all the rage. I was like, “this is so stupid. No one's going to watch 11-second videos.” Or now, if it's more than 11 seconds, these kids' minds are gone and they're moving on to the next video. But that was kind of a new thing, so I never really got into it. But recently, I've got to admit, I started to get into it, and it's pretty cool. I enjoy it. You know, there's three videos that get me. Three videos. The algorithm knows me because it just gives them to me over and over.

The first one is church videos, right? I watch some pastors on there, you know, and they have some good stuff. And actually one of the guys, you know, one of the preacher-type people, inspired this sermon. So, I listen to those a lot. The second one are those, I don't know if you guys have ever seen it, but it's the cow hoof videos. Like, the cows get infections in their hooves, and these guys go out. I could do it. I'm not going to lie. I've watched so many videos at this point, I could tell you all about white line defects and salicylic acid. But they shave these knives and they shave their hooves down until they hit the infection, and then it pops, and then they put the acid in. I’m not going to lie, I watch them a lot. I don't know why I find them so interesting, but they are.

And the third ones that really get me is that guy - I don't know if you've ever seen him - but he's that guy that goes and interviews like millionaires and billionaires. And he goes and he's like, “Well, what does it take to be successful?” And these guys get up and they all thank God, but none of them have Christian advice to give. And they get up and they talk about how God has blessed them, but this is what you have to do, and this is how you can be successful too.

And I look, and I can almost watch the ticker on the videos just going. And I realize that many people are watching these videos, all in an effort to become successful. They want to be successful just like these millionaires, so they listen so closely to their advice, and they take it almost like gospel. Like, “I'm going to do the exact same business plan as this guy because this guy is successful, and I want to be successful as well”. They don't interview the people that are homeless on the street, right, that failed. You know, they only interview the best of the best, the guys that went and succeeded and have the most money. And people—and I realized, watching these videos—how much our young people really suck this stuff in to be able to listen and say, this is how you can be successful too. There's thousands of people listening to this, if not millions of people watching every single one that is posted.

And I see that, and I realize that in this American commercialized world that we live in, the society that we live in, the church needs to rise up and really redefine what success is. Because when you say the word success, you probably think of money. You probably think houses. You probably think boats. But the truth is, the church needs to rise up and be able to give a real definition, and really talk about what true success is. Because I got to tell you, everything that you see in this world is counterfeit to what God has instilled. God has a way of success. God has a road of success. There are ways to be successful in the Kingdom of God. And we don't talk about that, and we let these things of the world infiltrate the church and overshadow the message of the church.

"This is the greatest type of success that exists in this world; to be united with God."

I tell you, we need to redefine what success is. And I got to tell you, I know you've probably seen TV evangelists that talk about how to be successful, but the truth is that the Bible teaches the very opposite in a lot of cases. It tells you, to be successful, you need to overcome this world and depravity. That you will have to be reunited with your Father as one, reunited with God in Heaven. That is to be successful. This is the greatest type of success that exists in this world; to be united with a Holy God in Heaven God. When you read through the Bible there is separation, the entire Bible, Success in the kingdom of God that overshadows any type of success in this world is to be united with God.

So today, I'm going to be like that young man that goes on and gives advice to the next generation to tell them how to be successful. Mine is not going to be how to get rich in this world, but mine is going to be to tell you how to be successful in the kingdom of God. So I'm going to give you three pieces of advice. These are golden. You might want to write them down. Hang on to them.

The first thing is motivation matters. Motivation matters. I watch these videos of these guys over and over, and they say this all the time: motivation matters. There was one guy that stuck out to me. You know, he was like, uh, you know, big, muscular. He had like a thousand-dollar suit on, and he got up and he said, “Yeah, motivation matters because your desire is going to be to stay in bed.” Your desire is going to be to stay stagnant. Your desire is going to be to keep the status quo. But your motivation to get up, to succeed, to get up and want to be successful, that's going to get you out of bed in the morning and get you out to work and to overcome all of that stagnation and to overcome the status quo and overcome how you've always done things. You will go and take risks because you're motivated to do so.

And I was reading my Bible and I opened up to the story of Moses, and I thought, “Wow, this so applies to Moses,” because Moses is exactly that guy that probably wanted to stay and wanted to do his own thing, and didn't want to get into all the drama, and just wanted to keep things the same way. Yet he was motivated to get up, to overcome his stagnation, to overcome the status quo, to go do what God had told him to do.

I think about where he is as we're going to pick this up in Exodus 2. Listen, I'm going to be jumping around a lot today. I have a lot of verses. But I think about in Exodus 2, when we pick up the story, Moses' life had been shattered at this point. He had found out his whole upbringing was a lie. He had gone. He had developed a heart for the Jewish people. He killed the slave driver. So all these things are going on, and now he flees, and he's in the wilderness, and he's going, and he's trying to piece together his life.

And we're going to pick that up in Exodus 2:19, where he said, “They answered, ‘An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered our flock.’ And ‘Where is he?’ Reuel asked his daughters. ‘Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.’ Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, ‘I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.’”

So Moses goes into the wilderness, and he meets this family, and Jethro is kind of setting him up at this point. Now, I know there's only a few verses here. I don't want you guys to think like Moses just gave some girl some water and the dad was like, “Yeah, you want to marry her? Take her, right?” That's not how it worked. This is over a period of time, right? It didn't happen in one week. You know, this had gone on for a little while, and he was invited, and from there things started to roll, and his life started to get pieced back together.

So he finds this family, and Jethro kind of takes him and starts to build him back up. And he starts to get a life, and he gets a wife. And then he gets a son, Gershom—Gershom meaning “I'm a foreigner.” When he's saying I'm a foreigner in a foreign land, it's almost like he's accepting his place, his new life. He's not saying “I'm a visitor.” No, he's saying,” I'm a foreigner in a foreign land, but that's okay. This is my new life.” And he begins to accept his new life here in the wilderness.

And things are starting to go a little bit better for him. Remember, he had been through the drama. He had gone through some real stuff. And now things are starting to get put back together. And I'm sure if I was in his shoes, I would be like, thank God there's some peace. I don't want any more drama. I just want to be in the wilderness with my family and start to rebuild my life. And then Exodus 3 happens. Exodus 3, it'll be up here, says, “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.”

So all of a sudden there's this pivotal moment, of this burning bush where God begins to talk to him. And God begins to charge him. And God begins to say, “You're going to go and do amazing things. I have plans for you. I have plans to send you back into Egypt, and you're going to go tell Pharaoh, and you're going to go do it.” And here is that moment where he has this quiet life. Things are starting to go well. He has a status quo. He wants to keep doing things the same way. He doesn't need more drama in his life. But all of a sudden, God begins to speak to him.

So his desire and his motivation become at a crossroads. He desires to continue to do things and continue to build his life. He desires no more drama. He desires to lead a quiet life. And he begins to make excuses to God. There's that moment of indecision where he's talking to God, and he's like, “Well, Lord, what if they don't believe me? What if I don't have the power? I'm not really that good of a speaker.” And God has to kind of convince him. And he puts his hand in his coat and he comes out, right? The staff turns into a snake. It's that whole thing. He sends Aaron with him, you guys know the story. But that moment of indecision before he finally says, “Okay, I'm going to go”—that burning bush moment was enough to motivate him out of his situation, out of his desire, and into God's plan. Ultimately, his motivation to honor God outweighed his desire to stay put and stay in the status quo.

And if we look at Exodus 4:20, it says, “So Moses took his wife and his sons, put them on a donkey, started back to Egypt, and he took the staff of God in his hand,” the staff of authority. And he's going where? Back to Egypt. Do you think he wants to go back to Egypt? No, right? Of course not. I wouldn't want to go back to Egypt. Nobody wants to go back to the drama of their old life. But he does. He does because God—he had a motivation to honor God.

Today we have to examine our lives. Everyone has a desire to be stagnant. Everyone has a desire to be comfortable. Everyone has a desire not to move and continue to do the old. My question today is, is your motivation enough to honor God? Is your motivation to honor God enough to overcome that stagnation? The world even recognizes this. The most successful people in the world are the ones who are the most driven to overcome their stagnation. Is your motivation to know God, to honor God, to meet God, to see God, to touch Him, to have Him in your life, to have Him come into your family and transform, to know Him and know His ways—is that enough motivation to overcome your old ways and the stagnation and upheave your life and put your wife and your son on a donkey and say, come on, we can't continue to live this way with our head in the sand, but we need to upturn our lives because God has plans for us? God has plans.

What motivates you? It's going to be different for each person. I can tell you, for me, there's a sense of thanksgiving for all God has done that motivates me to get up. There's the fact that I feel like I owe God a debt, that He has done something so great for me that I have to—even though I'm never going to be able to repay it—there's something that motivates me to get up to repay God. There are vows. I've made vows before God to say, “God, I'm going to honor You,” and I feel like I have to fulfill those, obviously. And then there's the heavenward thinking, knowing that we have such a short time in this world, like the carpet analogy, that this is a proving ground, and our time here is so short, and really what matters is eternity.

The world teaches that success equals money, but the truth of the Bible is that reaching God is the greatest success that you can ever have. Every moment that we enter this building and we come in on a Sunday and God shows up, that's a monumental success. Every time, amen. Every family that is here today that would have been torn up and lost and broken in the world, but is together here today, that is a monumental success. What greater form of success can you have besides entering into Heaven? Entering into the place with no crying, no suffering, no pain, none of that, with your family and your loved ones for all of eternity—what greater form of success can we have in this world?

We need to stop being short-sighted and begin to play the long game. All those millionaires say, stop going for instant gratification. Stop spending on the little things. Invest and go for the future. Well, I'll tell you the same thing. Stop working for things that are going to rot and things that are going to break and things that are going to burn, and instead come into Christ. Come into Christ.

Moses was going through all these hardships, all of these things. You know, I can imagine him being like, “I don't want to do it, God.” There's all these things. I deliver them out of Egypt, and they're being stiff-necked, and they're constantly turning on me and challenging my authority. He comes down, he breaks the tablets in anger. Every time he turns around, earrings are falling into the fire and the calves are popping out, right? I can't imagine his frustration. He left his peaceful life for this. But I want you to see how his speech changes in Exodus 33. He says, “If You are pleased with me, teach me Your ways so that I might know You and continue to find favor with You.” Right? That's a pretty bold statement. The Lord said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then Moses said, “Don't send us, God. If Your presence does not go with us, do not send us from here. We need Your presence. And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing You have asked because I am pleased with you and know you by name.”

And then Moses gets really bold and he says, “Now show me Your glory.” He doesn't say, like, “Please. Sir, if You don't mind.” He's like, “No, show me Your glory!” Then he's like, show me Your face. I want to see the face of God. And God replies to him, “You cannot see My face, for no one can see Me and live.” Then the Lord said, “There's a place near Me where you would stand on the rock. When My glory passes by,” He says, “I'll put you in the cleft of the rock. I will put My hand over the top of the rock until I have passed by.” And then you will see—He talks about how he will see the back of Him.

You see, when Moses goes, he is asking something. He's asking to see God, to see the face of God. And God said, “You're going to die if you see My face.” And Moses was willing to risk it all just to catch a sight of God from the back, just to see Him as He passed by. He was willing to risk it all. Moses' motivation was to reach God however he could. It motivated him to be bold and to continue to push until he was successful. Even just God passing by and catching that fleeting image of Him was enough to risk it all. We need to know today that God is the prize. Jesus Christ is the prize. To be successful is to know Him. He is what’s at the end of the rainbow. He is the thing that we are motivated to chase after. He is the thing we want to meet with. He is the thing we want to see. He's the thing we want to know. God is the prize, and that presence is what should be motivating us to get out of our old ways and to come into Him.

So we see motivation matters, right, number one. Secondly, obedience is key. Obedience is key. Now listen, when I watch those videos and that guy goes, nobody says obedience is key. They say character is key. Character is key. I hear that a million times in those videos: character is key. But in Christ, obedience is what builds character. In Christ, in the Church, obedience is what builds character. And character is missing in this world. It is absent. But when we walk into the Church, you learn character through obedience.

How? Let's think about it. It teaches you perseverance. Why? To be obedient to God, you have to persevere because you're going to want to do your own thing. A situation is going to arise, and it's going to be hard, and you're going to want to take it into your own hands. You're going to want to take control over it. You're going to want to yell. You're going to have to seek God's face, and you have to say, God, You have to do this on my behalf. It teaches you to push through. It teaches you perseverance.

It also teaches you leadership. Obedience will teach you leadership. Why? Because you can't do things the way the world does it. You can't. You might want to, but you can't. You can't go the way that everyone else goes. So obedience teaches leadership because you are forced to go and blaze a new path that has never gone before. You are forced to do things in a different way than everyone else. You are forced to be a leader because to be obedient to God, you cannot take the road that the world takes.

"...when you bring character - God-fought, God-earned, obedient character - it is going to stand out in this world. "

So obedience teaches leadership. It also teaches loyalty—loyalty to God, His kingdom, His precepts, your family. When the world is only loyal to self and getting more things and more money and advancing themselves, when you come into obedience to God, you're all about His way, His kingdom, His things, and it teaches you loyalty. You see, character in this world is missing. And when you bring character - God-fought, God-earned, obedient character - it is going to stand out in this world. Obedience will make you not only successful in the kingdom of God, but successful in this world.

And I think again about Moses. Remember everything he had gone through at this point: the heartache, constantly finding Israel turning to other gods. Remember the hot days, cold nights, and he brought his family. It would be like me bringing Jessica and Joshua into the desert. Is it hot in the desert? Yeah. Is it cold at night? Yeah. He probably had a nice tent. Jethro had seven daughters. They probably cooked, took care of the home. He probably had things going pretty well in the wilderness. Yet what happened? He was motivated. He got up, went to the wilderness, and now there he is in the heat and in the cold, yet pushing through, pushing through in obedience.

Now he's been in the wilderness for 38 years at this point. We're going to read in this next verse. Numbers 20. “Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together.” Remember, he's frustrated. I get it. I would be frustrated too because these people just keep on challenging him, challenging his authority, turning away from him. And he looks at them and says, “Hear now, you rebels, shall we bring water out of this rock for you?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their livestock all drank.

And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in Me to uphold Me as holy in the eyes of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” So God told Moses at this point to speak to the rock. He said, “Tell the rock in My name to bring forth water. It will.” But Moses, in his frustration, in his anger—which I totally understand; I would be frustrated too—he grabs his staff and strikes the rock twice.

What is the difference? It seems like an insignificant difference, doesn't it? Striking a rock compared to speaking to it. But what is the truth? One speaks to God's power. One speaks to man's power. One speaks to God doing it. One speaks to Moses doing it. It seems like an insignificant detail, but this really speaks to the problem of when God makes a man successful in the kingdom or in the world, what begins to happen? Man is blessed and man is given God-given authority, and he begins to transform it from God-given authority into man-made authority. And he begins to transfer what God is doing into his own hands, and he's saying that it is me. “I got this. I'm the one who did it.”

This has existed since the beginning of time, and we still see it so often in the Church. One speaks to God's greatness. The other speaks to man's greatness. I need to tell you today that obedience does not take a break. It does not diminish, and it is not changed by circumstance. Obedience needs to remain through the hard times, through the frustrating times, through the times where you're angry, through the times that you've had enough, through the times that you're weary, through the times that you just feel like you can't do it anymore. Obedience must remain. Obedience must remain.

I was praying with Dwight the other day, and he had a shirt on. I thought it was a Christian sweatshirt, but it wasn't. The sweatshirt said—and it really hit my heart—it said, consistency over intensity. I loved that. I was sitting there praying, and it hit my heart, and I was like, yes, consistency over intensity. I want to take that, and I want to make it like a T-shirt or put it up in my house. That, to me, is such a strong saying. And it should be applied in the church as well.

Because when we have people and they come in and they're touched by God, it's great. It's awesome. But what happens? That's a very intense moment. It's intense. And then people are like, I want to go to the street corner. I want to preach. I want to do all these things. And that's great. Or they say, if they're musicians, they're like, I want to get up with Luke, and I want to rock out, and I want to hit the electric, and I want to do all these things. It's an intense moment, and they want to serve, and that's great. But I tell you, what really matters in the kingdom is consistency over intensity. Because obedience comes in the times where you don't feel that intensity, where you're tired and where you don't feel like going through it. But obedience remains when you have consistency over time. It's like the stock market under Trump. There might be little dips here or there, but it keeps going up. It's one direction, heading to Heaven. It's all trending upward. That is the life of the Christian.

I'm not saying that there aren't going to be dips. I'm not saying that there aren't going to be mistakes. I'm not saying that God's blood is not going to have to cover some sin. But what I am telling you is that it needs to trend upward over time so that God can deliver you into Heaven. That is the story of the Bible: God's Spirit coming upon a man, transforming him and doing something inside of him to get him through the hills and the valleys. But through everything, he remains obedient. Consistent obedience is the key to success in the kingdom of God.

Now, Deuteronomy 3—Moses responds to Him, and he says, “Please let me go and see the good land behind the Jordan, the good hill country, and Lebanon. But the Lord was angry with me because of you.” Funny he says that. Because of you, He was angry with me, right? I've tried that before, It didn't work! And the Lord said to me, “Enough from you. Do not speak to Me on this matter again. Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes westward and north and east and south and look at it with your eyes, for you shall not go over past the Jordan.” Now, if you feel that that is harsh, I will agree with you, right? But I want you to keep it. I want you to bookmark it in your mind because we're going to talk about it later. It is harsh, but I want you to bookmark it because God's plans are not our plans.

Obedience—we live in a world where obedience is dictated by circumstance, right? You should do these things, and this is what the church teaches—you should do these things—but, you know, I get it if circumstance comes up. I get it. Circumstance happens. We live in a world where obedience is an ideal, but one that is expected not to be lived up to.

We say, “Yeah, my children, I really should be more on them. I really should be stopping them from doing all these things. I know what the Bible says, but you just don't understand, they're teenagers, and they're only going to live once, and you've got to live it up while you can, and they've got to do what they have to do because they're not going to be teenagers forever. That's just too much to ask. What you're asking is just too much. I know what the Bible says, but you just don't understand the circumstances.” Or we say, “I know I've got to be in church, but the overtime is there, and I've got to take it, and there's money there. How could I not? One day I'll retire. One day I won't have to work as much, and then I'll be in the church, and then I'll be there on Sunday. And don't you just wait. One day I'll be there, but right now, the circumstances just don't work.” Or, you know, “Listen, I know that God has called for my mouth to be holy, but you just don't understand how angry they make me, or how frustrated I get, or that they deserve it, or what they have done to me. And we say these things. I know my mouth should be holy, but, you know, the circumstance.”

And the church teaches this thing where obedience is based on circumstance. But doesn't Moses have more of an excuse than anybody, right? The Israelites keep doing all these things, and they keep turning their back on him, and they challenge his authority. He keeps having to rise up. All this stuff is going on. But God teaches obedience—just obedience. Not based on circumstance, not based on feeling, not based on past history, nothing. Just consistent obedience over time. Moses could have had those same excuses. He could have said, “This is what I've uprooted my family for. This is what I brought my children and my wife and put them on a donkey and entered back into Egypt for. This is what I came back for. They're talking about going back to Egypt. They're talking about how they would have been better off as slaves. This is why I came to do this.” But I tell you, success in the kingdom of God is about staying on the road of obedience. But staying on the road will only work if you trust the GPS. If you don't trust that voice, if you don't trust what that GPS is telling you, you will not be led there. The minute you think that you know a shortcut, that you know a better way, that your way is better than what the voice says, you will be led off the road. Let me tell you about a verse that says, “There's a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to destruction.” That is what happens when men no longer trust the GPS, and they say, I know a shortcut. I know a better way. Their circumstance dictates which way I should go, so I'm going to move off of the road. And I tell you, the minute you move off the road, it will not lead you to Heaven. It will not lead you to your destination. You will not be successful.

God is calling us to trust and follow because there is only one way, one way into the promised land, and it is through consistent obedience day after day. I'm not saying that we're not going to screw up. I'm not saying that we're not going to have times that we need to go to God. But what I am telling you is that our lives need to trend upward toward Heaven every single day. That is the only way to be successful in the kingdom of God.

All right, so what do we have? Where are we at? We have motivation matters, right? Obedience is key. And finally, the last thing is invest in people, not things. I hear that all the time: invest in people, not things. You know, even what's the one guy's name from Shark Tank? Robert Herjavec, right? I just identify with that guy, right? He's just like a nerd that kind of overcame his nerdhood, you know, and now he's got like long hair and he loves cars and he's cool and stuff. But, you know, I can see it deep down. He's still that guy, you know. And I love that. And he always says—he's always like, “I don't invest in businesses, I invest in people.” And I hear that all the time. I don't invest in things. I invest in people.

What I'm going to say to you today is don't invest in people, but invest in Christ. Invest in Christ, not in things. Don't invest in things that are going to rot and are going to fall away because I tell you, Christ is the only thing that is worth investing into. Whatever we devote our time to is what we invest in. Think about it. We only have a finite time in this world. Every minute that you spend with something in this world, you're devoting or you're investing into that thing. Even being here today is an investment into God, into the church, and that's great. But I want us to think about how many different things we invest our time into. You only get so many minutes.

I just went to the funeral of a guy I knew pretty well, and he just had a heart attack, suddenly passed away. No expectation, just gone. One minute he's here, one minute he's gone. We only have so much time in this world, so every minute is an investment into something. And some of that's okay, right? Our careers, they take investment, and that's okay, as long as what? It doesn't go too far. Because what happens when we go too far? All of a sudden, we're investing so much of our life and our identity and who we are in our careers that we lose our sense of identity. So we do have to invest in those things, but too much begins to lead down a bad road. Even your personal time. We all need our personal time. That might not be bad. We need time. But what happens when we begin to invest in our personal time too much? What do you become, the Bible says? A sluggard, right? A sluggard who never wants to move. So investing in personal time is okay to a certain extent, but after a while it becomes an idol, and we become a sluggard. You're not going to want to get up and go to work. Or even your children. Listen, we need to invest in our children, that they would grow up and be whole individuals and they would be able to traverse this world that we live in. But what happens when we invest too much? We begin living vicariously through our children. You become that dad up in the stands screaming at their kid when they miss a pitch, and then you're freaking out, right? We've all seen those guys up in the stands. When we invest too much, our children can even become an idol.

So we can see that everything requires an investment in this world, and I think about all the things that we invest in in this world, but yet the most important thing of our existence—eternity—isn't one of them. For the most part, this world, people do not invest into eternity, which is unbelievable. I think about Pastor Bob. He goes to the hospitals, and he'll sit down, and somebody will be 99 and a half years old, and they have congestive heart failure, and he's like, “Hey, have you given any thought about what's next?” And they're like, “No, not really. You know, like, never really thought about it.” And he's like, “Well, you know it's coming!” I love these stories, right? You know it's coming. And they're like, “I guess I just thought I'd see what happens!”

And this world that we live in takes this stance of, I think it'll work itself out. With eternity, the most important thing of our entire existence, we invest into everything—our careers, our kids, everything. Our sports teams. We either want to take control over it, or we want to be a part of it, and we invest ourselves into those things. But yet when it comes to eternity, we take a stance of, I'll see what happens. I think it'll work itself out.

The Kingdom is the single greatest investment that you will ever invest yourself into. In an unstable market, in a world where there are no promises, where there's no guaranteed return on investments, the Lord Jesus Christ—if you invest yourself into Him, if you come before Him and say, “God, I'm going to devote this time to You. You are going to be my number one. I will not have any other gods before You, but I'm going to sit at the base of Your throne and worship You”—to invest those minutes or hours of your life into the Kingdom of God. I tell you, there is nothing worthwhile in this world to invest in besides God.

And I think about Moses. Now, I want to go back real fast to what we preached about before. In the first point that I talked about, he asked for something and didn't get it. What was it? Do you guys remember? He asked to see the face of God, and he wasn't able to. In the second point, there was something he wanted as well. What was that? He wanted to see the promised land. He didn't get that.

I want you guys to open up your Bibles to Matthew 17. I'm going to actually have you guys open up on this one. It says, “After six days, Jesus took with Him Peter, James, and John, the brother of James, and led them up to a high mountain by themselves. There, Jesus was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. And just there appeared before Him, who? Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, ‘Look, it is good for us to be here. I will put up three shelters, one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud came and said, ‘This is My Son, whom I love. With Him I am well pleased.’”

Moses' desire was to see the face of God. And here we are: Jesus is transfigured. He sheds, for a moment, His earthly body, and He takes on the glory of God. Now I'm going to read two verses to you guys. One's Colossians 1:15 that says, “The Son is the image of the invisible God.” Hebrews 1:3: “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being.” So Jesus is going to be transfigured. He sheds His earthly skin. He takes on the glory of God. And who does the Father see fit to send to witness this miraculous event? Moses.

He wants to see the face of God. He said, “I want to see Your face, God.” But God said, “You can't see it because you'll die.” But yet in this moment where Jesus is transfigured and He begins to take on the face of God—remember, the Son is the radiance of God's glory—and Moses said, I want to see Your glory. Here we are again on another mountain, surrounded by another cloud, and God sends down Moses to come see the face of God in Jesus Christ. In that moment, he was fulfilled. His desire was fulfilled in Christ. When God said you can’t see it because you’ll die, you can’t do it, in that moment his desire was fulfilled in Christ.

"Any desire that you might have in this world is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ alone."

And what was the second one? He wanted to see the promised land. When we look at what mountain they're on, they're on Mount Toreb in this. Where is Mount Toreb? In the promised land! In the promised land! So Moses comes and he puts his feet where? In the promised land. What he desired all those years ago. And not only does he get it in the physical, but what is to happen when Jesus died and rose again? He led a train of captives into Heaven. Who do you think was in that train? Moses. Entering into the promised land not only here on earth, but also the one that is to come! You see, all Moses' desires were fulfilled in Christ. All Moses' desires were fulfilled in Christ. All of your desires are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Any desire that you might have in this world is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

We need to understand Jesus Christ, He is the reward. He is the reward. He is the original. This world is nothing but counterfeit. Roland said it the other day during prayer. This world is nothing but counterfeit. It is filled with counterfeit things trying to grab your attention and trying to grab the eyes of our young people and bring them in and make them say that this is what it means to be successful. But let me tell you, to be successful is to know the Lord Jesus Christ. You want to be accepted? You want to be loved? Well, then come into the Lord Jesus Christ. You will find acceptance and love that you never thought this world had. You will be a whole person, not needing anything else. You want to be at peace? Come to know Jesus Christ, where you're no longer at war with Him inside of your heart, where your heart is with Him and you are at peace inside your heart, and you will find peace that transcends all understanding! You want to stop being so sad and you want to be joyful again like when you were a kid? Well, I'll tell you, in the Lord Jesus Christ there is a joy that is not affected by circumstance. It is the joy of our salvation. People of God, we need to stop working for mansions here on earth and begin to work for a mansion that is waiting for us in Heaven. Our investment, our time to be successful, is not in what this world has. It is counterfeit. It is opposite of God. But God came. The Lord Jesus Christ came that you would find success in the kingdom of God. He is the answer. He is the One. He is the prize.

Moses, after everything he went through, after everything—all the headache, all the heartache, all the drama, everything he went through—in the end, all of his desires were fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Today, I tell you, I don't know what your desires are for this world. I don't know what you have in your heart that you want. But in Christ Jesus, all desires worth having are fulfilled. He is the answer. Through Him all sin is abolished. Through Him we are together with our brothers and sisters in Christ for all eternity. In Christ we have a place at His table for all of eternity. In Christ we have a place with our families, knowing Him for all the rest of our days, being able to sit in His presence and worship Him and be with our loved ones.

What greater success does this world offer than that? We need to stop being short-sighted. What else could we possibly desire in this world outside of God? He is worthwhile. He is worth the pursuit. He is worth going after. In Him, all our desires are fulfilled.