Don’t TRIP. In this sermon, Pierre Fulford invites us to understand how easy it is to TRIP (Temporal Reality Inverting Perspective) as we take the trip of life. We can allow the temporary to determine the way we live and miss out on what really matters, or can look beyond the temporary and see the eternal, walking in the present with an enduring perspective.
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Don’t Trip
• Pierre Fulford
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Our guest speaker, Pierre Fulford, challenges us in this sermon to see our lives from an eternal perspective. This challenge comes in the form of an acronym, TRIP. It stands for Temporal Reality Inverting Perspective. The temporal reality is a contrast to the eternal. The inverting perspective is to see things from the opposite point of view from what they should be. To TRIP is to allow the temporary to govern the direction of your existence. When we do this, we allow things that do not endure to dictate our lives. When we allow the paths of our lives to be shaped by the temporary, we find ourselves despising the past. Then we are pessimistic about the present because the current situation falls short. And then we are frustrated with the future because we are going nowhere. We are caught in a lie where nothing is good enough, and we end up with a false view of self.
As Pierre walks us through the focus scripture quoted above, he highlights four points:
- Don’t TRIP over the Temporary, We’re on a Trip and It’s Temporary. Don’t give your all to this current reality of the journey of life. The “tent” in verse one refers to our physical existence, which will pass away. There is more to this life than what we see. We cannot put our faith in the things that will not last, in the things that will be blown away by the trials that we face on the journey. Only God can keep us as we walk through this life.
- Don’t TRIP, God Is With Us. Jesus entered into our physical existence and walked with us on this trip. While this present journey is temporary, it is the space where God walks with us. God actually enters into our temporal world and leads us to see the deeper reality and the truth from his perspective so that we do not TRIP.
- Don’t TRIP, You’re Gonna Look Amazing. Paul writes in the focus scripture that we groan in this current reality. We long for more. We are made for more than what we can see in our mortality. This is the life given to us on the cross, but it is not fully revealed. It’s like a dream to be united with our eternal destiny and now we are traversing a path through a desert. Our eternal destiny is to be in union with God, but now we are walking in a world that stands in the way of this. When we see him as he is, then we will fully experience life as Christ’s bride and discover the full meaning of this union.
- Don’t TRIP, We Have a Guarantee. The Spirit is this guarantee, a gift of God’s empowering presence who walks with us in this present struggle. The personal unseen presence of God in this life is a down-payment for the fullness of God’s presence that is to come.
We have this hope as we walk through the temporary. Thus, we cannot allow that which is going to pass away to dictate the steps we take. We must look beyond and engage the eternal.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Discipleship, Faith
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The MuseCast: May 26
Focus Scripture:
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2 Corinthians 5:1-5
For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
