In this sermon, the speaker addresses the lack of purpose and direction in American culture. He highlights how busyness and self-centeredness have become the norm, leading to boredom and ultimately giving in to sin. The speaker shares his personal journey of realizing the emptiness of this lifestyle and how God woke him up from this slumber. He emphasizes the need to live a life focused on sharing the gospel, loving others, and giving oneself for the sake of others, as we are bought with a price and accountable to God.

Matthew chapter 22. Matthew chapter 22 and verse 36. Let's start reading there. Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. As we've been seeing this week, this weekend, we've been talking about the church and looking at different aspects of it. And when we look at the life of Christ, we see that 50% of his life was given to knowing God and knowing the scriptures. He loved God with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength, all his mind. And many Christians nowadays, in an attempt to come out of shallow Christianity, focus on getting to know God and they focus on the deeper life. And that's really good. And I don't downplay that at all. But if you look here at verse 38, there's a whole other 50%. That first 50% is loving God. But we see in verse 38, the other 50% of Jesus' life that he gave himself to and that was loving other people, loving your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus lived for God, he loved God, but he also lived for others. And if we're going to follow Jesus, it's very important that we keep the proportions the same. And unfortunately, one of the things that you'll see in Christianity is you'll see a lot of people emphasizing knowing God and the deeper life and reading the scriptures and that's good. But then you'll come across people on the other side and they have a very shallow understanding of God, but they're into social work and they're into maybe feeding the poor and helping fatherless and the widows and there are a lot of good things that they do. But that's all they're into and they don't know God. And so all the people they help, they haven't brought them to eternal life because they don't have it themselves. They're loving people, loving people, loving people and not loving God. And so for every one mile of road, there's two miles of ditches. And we want to make sure that we stay out of either ditch and we want to have our proportions 50% loving God and 50% loving people. And the reason I bring that up is the context of what we've been discussing this weekend is to see if the Lord is wanting to raise up in this area a local church and as we talked about last night, a body, a mirror that people can look at and see what God is like. And if all that happens is you come together and sing and read the Bible and you go home and spend time at Jesus' feet, you would have only as a church had 50% of what Jesus did. And so I want to talk about that other 50% today and I want to make it more practical. And so I want to share my testimony in regards to this subject and I hope that it can encourage you. I heard a message very similar to the one I'm about to give when I was 19 and I had just graduated from high school. I was going to college and just kind of wandering aimlessly. I had already seen through the world and had already come out of drugs and many gross sins and such. And I just started going to church but I still didn't have a clear direction for my life and I heard a message like this and it totally changed my life. And I'm just hoping if even if there's one person here today that could have ears to hear what I'm saying and apply it. It can totally totally change the whole direction of your life. Because to be honest you know I'm here and you know I've come out and visited Alan you know several times and Alan and I are you know really close. And I see a great lack of direction in people's lives. You know I see the culture of the area affecting many people that I know. I'm not even speaking about most of you. I people that Alan and I know that are in the area that at one point in time loved Jesus were passionate about Jesus. I just see a great wandering. There isn't a clear purpose a clear direction. And then what ends up happening is boredom sets in and boredom you know just breeds you know like they say boredom is the devil's workshop. You know and people get bored and they end up you know giving into the flesh and entertainment and sin and things like that. And so my heart today is to share with you something that is fundamentally different than the culture that we have in America. You know the the American culture and all of its subcultures. The American dream. You know dad goes to work eight hours a day, comes home, takes a shower, eats dinner, watches TV. Mom goes to Walmart. Everybody's busy busy busy busy busy busy. And each of the kids have their own friends and their own hobbies and they're busy and everybody's busy. And basically for the most part obviously there are exceptions but for the most part people are consumed with living for themselves. And they make money so they can spend it on themselves or maybe on their family. And what they meditate on is there's a filter in their mind and everything that goes through that filter is how is this good for me? How is this going to benefit me? How is this going to benefit my family? What am I going to get out of it? And it's just self self self. And then you take that culture and that's what we're raised in and then some people out of that culture come to Christ and now they're saved and they're going to church but they haven't shed that culture. And so they're just not getting drunk anymore and maybe they're not fornicating anymore and on drugs but they're still selfish, self-centered. You know like it talks about the Old Testament. They sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to play. And with many of them God wasn't pleased. Why? Because their life was just consumed with self. And what do you want to do tonight? It's Friday night. I don't know what do you want to do? Let's just you know maybe we can go hang out at Bob's house. Okay yeah it sounds cool. And it's just you know month after month just not living for other people. And what I want to share is an addiction. You know they have AA meetings and the guy gets up. You know I'm an addict. I've been an addict for 20 years and da da da da da. And what I want to share is an addiction that God gave me 20 years ago. Not 20 years ago. 16 years ago. That totally changed me. And let's look at 1st Corinthians chapter 16. This is a good addiction. You know before I came to Christ I was an addict. I was addicted to drugs. I was addicted to you know fornication and money and all kinds of wicked things. TV, inappropriate movies and such. And I went to drug rehab when I was 17 and they through psychology and all this stuff they said well you have an addictive personality. That's what your problem is. And anything that you do you're gonna be an addict. And you know they're right. Once an addict always an addict. So when I came to Christ and I received these truths that I want to share today I got addicted to it. And then I saw this verse in the Bible and I was like hey this is cool. This justifies my addictive personality. 1st Corinthians chapter 16 verse 15. Now I beseech you brethren you know the house of Stephanus that is the firstfruits of Achaia that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the Saints. That you submit yourselves unto such and to everyone that helps with us and labors. So this guy Stephanus was addicted to something. What was he addicted to? Serving people. Ministry whatever word your version uses. He was an addict okay. But he wasn't out in front of a gas station trying to bum two bucks so he'd go buy crack. He was an addict. He was addicted to helping people. There's someone boom I'm gonna help them. Here's a need boom I'm gonna meet it. This person needs Jesus. Boom I want to help them. I want to tell them about Jesus. He was addicted to the ministry. And notice it says in verse 16 that's the person that you want to submit yourself to. You know it doesn't say submit yourself to Stephanus he has a four-year degree in Bible theology. No. You find somebody that is addicted to helping others and that's somebody that's connected to God. That's someone you should be listening to is what he's saying. And there's a old hymn that kind of verbalizes this and some of you may have heard this in a message by Danny Keniston. But let me read this hymn and this kind of summarizes my addiction. Lord help me live from day to day in such a self-forgetful way that even when I kneel to pray my prayer shall be for others. Others Lord yes others. Let this my motto be that while I have lived for others I would have lived like thee. That is the addiction that if you're gonna have a New Testament church that is the addiction that the core of that church needs to get addicted to. Living for other people. Breaking away from this culture that is selfish, self-seeking, self-centered and restructuring your life in such a way where you're living for other people. And this goes all the way from the oldest person here all the way to the youngest person here. It's a change of lifestyle. It's a restructuring of the whole way you spend your money, you spend your time, everything. And I'm telling you it is the best life there is when you're living for other people. Jesus says it's more blessed to give than to receive. And our culture is hell-bent on receiving, receiving, receiving. And I make money for me and my family and I spend time outside of the time I'm working. I spend time on entertainment for me and my family and we sit down and we eat and we drink and we rise up to play and we go to a coffee house and we sit there and we hang out. And many people in the age group that most of you are in, Christians, there's just a lot of time hanging out just to have fun, joking, you know. And meanwhile there's people that don't know God in the area and there's people that need help. There's a widow down the road and her husband left her and she's got three kids and she's working two jobs. She can't pay her electric bill and if we were to take the amount of money we all spend on coffee today we could help her with her electric bill. You know, just giving examples here of seeing past our own little life and seeing there's this world out there of people that need Jesus. You know, Hebrews chapter 10 verse 24 says, let us consider one another and stir up one another to love and to good works. And so I want to give some testimonies today and my motive in giving these testimonies is to stir you up into some good works. There's no desire here for me to, you know, I'm not trying to bring glory to myself. I could give you a lot more testimonies about how much of a loser I am than about some of the things that God has done in me that were of Him. So I'm not trying to seek glory or anything, but these are things that I want to share because they happened when I was, you know, most of your age is when I was 19 through 25. And in hopes that you will hear these and be stirred up, stirred up to see eternity and to get your eyes off of the now and now and see eternity. When I first came to Christ, I was in high school and, you know, grew up not knowing Jesus. My parents didn't know Jesus and I was a total dopehead didn't even know how to read. I think I was still in like the 8th grade when I was in like the 12th grade or something, but they didn't fail me because they wanted me to graduate. They just like kept pushing me through and I was in LD, learning disabled class, and I was in SBH, severe behavior handicap class, and so I was LD, SBH, AD, ADHD, and so I was a mess basically. And so I come to Christ and I don't know anything about anything. I go to this church and I walk out of the church after the service and they have this rack in the back and there's these gospel tracts there and I don't even really know how to read, but I just knew that something had changed. Somebody had changed my life. Jesus just changed me. I had peace. I had joy. Guilt was gone and it was real and it was awesome and I wanted my friends to have it and I just knew that this piece of paper could tell them about it. I couldn't because I didn't know how to say anything, but this piece of paper could. I don't know what it says, but it could tell them about it, you know, and so I, you know, I'm like, wow, this is awesome and I'm just like stacking up, man. I got like a stack like that high and the guy's like, you sure you need all those? Yeah, I need them all, you know, and I walk out of the place like a kid in a toy store and I went to my high school and I get a bathroom pass and go to the bathroom and while I went to the bathroom, I'd stick them in lockers, you know, just kind of slide them through the doors of the lockers all the way to the bathroom, stick them all over the toilets and everything in the bathroom and then I'd go back into my room and nobody told me to do that. There was no, you know, legalistic thing like you need to be passing tracks out, brother. It just, there was suddenly love in my heart and I had something and I wanted other people to have it and that was the way I was before I came to Christ. Before I came to Christ, when I started smoking pot, I became an evangelist for pot and it was just like, dude, you gotta do this, man. And I, to this day, there are probably a hundred people that are still smoking pot because of me and I say that to my shame, seriously, but I was an evangelist for all kinds of things without knowing that's what I was and so now why couldn't I do that for God? You know, I had something that was way better than pot and all this other stuff. Why not tell people about it? I love my friends. I care about them and if they die without Jesus, they're gonna spend eternity in hell. I know this and they don't. I need to tell them but I don't know how to say anything because I don't know anything but this does and and it was there was a simplicity there and as I began to grow in the faith, God just put in me this supernatural burden, just a love. I would just love people. I would just go somewhere and I just would look at this person and just like, I love this person and God also put in me a supernatural burden like the reality of how quick life is was just constantly on me and I had this sense of urgency that this person I know could die and they don't know Jesus and a couple of kids that I went to high school with, you know, I would witness to them and they would say no and this one guy I witnessed to him and two nights later or two or three nights later he was like walking down the street and like a drunk driver hit him and he died and he rejected Christ at least the last time I talked to him a couple nights later he died and so that situation put in me this sense of urgency and then another kid I talked to, I mean I begged him to turn from his sin and he had grown up Christian, was hardcore Christian, was one of the people that convicted me before I was wholehearted and then he eventually kind of fell away and he was partying and I remember just saying dude you got to repent you're not saved and he had bit into this deception of once saved always saved and he was on coke and you know in fornication everything but yeah I'm still going to heaven because I know I got saved you know five years ago and I remember just begging him you have to repent like you're not going to heaven and I remember he had a cell phone and I remember he entered my phone number in and put my name and he said okay I'll call you and then I get a phone call a few days later he was at a party they were drunk they were playing Russian roulette and he blew his head off and he's dead like he's in hell right now and these situations that happened began to instill in me a sense of urgency that people need Jesus and if they die without Jesus they're going to spend eternity in hell and so I would walk around with this urgency with this burden I would be at a red light and and God would say give that person you know I'd be at a red light and I'd see in the rearview mirror car behind me and a couple kids smoking pot or something you know and give him a track well Lord it's a red light what if it turns green just give him a track okay and I put the car in park and get out and go to the car knock on the window hey can I give you this and they'd be like what you know and I'd hand it to him and and it was like I was yielded you see like it there was something there where I didn't care what people thought and another time my dad's partner this old grumpy mr. Magoo guy that it was a car dealer and penny pincher and everything and nobody liked him he was a really mean guy and I was driving down the road and God said clearly go give him a track you couldn't witness to this guy he was hard to even talk to and I said Lord but it's you know this guy yes give him a track okay I drove in there and said hey I want to give this to you and he's just like get out of here you know and okay and so I left one week later the guy died and see that was God's last you know just giving him one last chance and so I walked around in this and it built in me a burden to restructure my life I was you know 20 21 and I just had to tell people about Jesus and I would work the minimal amount that I had to so that I could go out the maximum maximum amount that I could and I would I knew I usually had always had Saturdays off so I would take Saturday and a very very similar to the inner city here like around where Alan lives I was in Akron Ohio which is like where LeBron James anybody knows him the neighborhood that I would go to is where he grew up really really bad neighborhood and I'd go door-to-door by myself the church that I went to many times nobody would show up and this is Ohio it's 20 degrees out it's freezing it's in the middle of the hood you could get killed there I mean like I'm 20 year old white guy and and I would just go door-to-door and and just weep like you see a mom you know five different kids with five different dads and she's half you know hungover and it's Saturday morning at 10 o'clock and and you know she opens the door and excuse me ma'am do you know if you die tonight if you go to heaven and and just see people break see people come to Christ and one of the times that I was out I was out there and it's just a really bad area it's a it can be really discouraging because you get rejected so much I just remember it just dawned on me I was out there I was on the streets and I just what had so much joy and so much peace I was utterly fulfilled and I cannot describe it nothing that I've done drugs I've done you name it I've done it in this world and I it was like I've never experienced anything like this before like I just it hit me I was like 20 years old and it was like this is awesome like I'm totally addicted to this just helping people just seeing people come to Christ I mean do you know what it's like to take somebody's hand okay and there's no physical hand here on God's side but here's God and here's somebody who's depressed who's lonely who's empty who's just defeated by guilt and sin and to just introduce them to the God of the universe and that person comes to Christ and in you feel the presence of God come in the room and God comes in that person and washes their sin away and tears swell up in their eyes and they look at you and this permagrin suddenly comes over their face and they say I'm going to heaven when I die now do you know what it's like to lead a soul to Christ it's the greatest thing in the world it's the best thing I've ever experienced I mean when Alan got saved you know I mean he's on his face just wailing you know and he's just like repenting and and you know I remember it like it was yesterday there is nothing better than living your life for the sake of the gospel we talked yesterday about you know when Jesus went to that one man and said follow me and he said you know my dad died I just want to go to the funeral and Jesus said let the dead bury the dead but do you remember what else he told him but you go and preach the kingdom I mean this is a central basic message to Christianity and yet most Christians I know can't even remember the last time they told someone about Jesus they can't even remember the last time they looked someone in the eyes and had a burden for their soul and said sir I love you but you're deceived according to what the scripture says if you die today you'd spend eternity in hell most Christians I know could they're not functioning in this basic teaching and so my heart is to provoke this this basic Christianity that maybe some of you that have grown up didn't experience but it talks about you know in Revelation chapter 2 repent and do the first works the things when you first came to Christ you wanted to do when you first came to Christ you wanted to read the Bible and pray and tell people about Jesus it's just like these basic things and as I walked in these at 1920 21 there I was in this inner-city church and there arose a need in this church there was a suburban church that was coming in and picking up the inner-city kids and taking them to their suburban church and it was predominantly they were all you know inner-city black kids and the suburban church didn't like the influence they were having on their kids and stuff so there was about 21 of these kids say ages 5 to 10 and this church said can you pick these kids up and take them to your church because they're not welcome in our church anymore and so they made this announcement you know at my church and my church didn't have a bus or anything like that and they said does anybody want to do it and all sudden the pastor was looking at me and my hand was up you know I don't even remember doing it was just like oh I guess I'll do it and I didn't have a bus and I had this awesome car that you know it was black with black headlight covers tail light covers limo tint on the side and a black wing I put all this money into this car and it was a total bling bling car and before I had gotten saved you know and and I loved this car and God said very clearly sell the car and buy a van you know and I wasn't always you know old and fat and ugly I was 20 years old at the time and you know I was you know fairly good-looking guy and you know I wanted my car you know because I look cool in it and you know the thought of driving around in a van was pretty cheesy you know and and God said clearly sell the car and buy a van you know you can't fit too many kids in a two-door car and so I said okay Lord and I sold the car and I bought a van and my wife now who was my girlfriend then this is how we would spend our weekends okay you get up on Saturday and you drive into the hood and you go to all the different houses of the people that you've picked up for church the you know the kids and you remind them tomorrow Sunday you're gonna come yeah I'm gonna come and you have to find out where they're gonna be that day because they're getting moved around all the time between parents and cousins and grandmas and you find out where they're gonna be and we would you know spend the morning picking them up on Saturday and many of them there was they didn't have adequate meals on the weekends the only time they could eat is at school you know during the week because the school would feed them on the weekends they just wouldn't eat because the parents would spend money on drugs and such so we take them out to McDonald's and that was like the highlight of their week and you know they just loved it just taking a kid to McDonald's you know we always used to just laugh and joke about it you know my buddy would always you know just he loved going with me you know because they you know Jason you go and take us to McDonald's yeah you want to go to McDonald's buddy yeah you know and so we go to McDonald's and get some chicken McNuggets and ice cream and and that's like the greatest thing in the world you're gonna buy me an ice cream yeah buddy why are you gonna do that because I love you oh because nobody loves them okay like they're just annoying and to their parents if they're both their parents are around they're in the way and here's somebody that loves them here's somebody that cares for them and we spend the day on Saturday helping them showing them how to work hey let's go to my house we'll rake the leaves and and and yeah let's do that and they love working hard and just being a father to the fatherless okay and being helping the widows in their affliction and so that's what we spent our time doing on Saturday that's what we spent our time on Saturday night when we were 20 21 and our friends are hanging out and just being cool and let's go see this movie let's go to this dance club let's go do this let's go do that let's go get drunk let's go smoke dope that's what my friends were doing my wife and I are you know in the middle of the hood on a Saturday night teaching you know these kids how to sing a hymn and then take them home Sunday morning get up you know 6 the morning drive back pick them all up and you go and you pull up beep beep he doesn't come out beep beep doesn't come out you knock on the front door and the door opens as you knock on it and mom's passed out right here on the floor and you know you have to walk over mom and walk over the boyfriend you know of the month and walk into the bedroom you know hey buddy you coming to church you know oh yeah yeah yeah I'm coming help him get dressed you know and his clothes are dirty and they're not washed and you know and let's go to church yeah yeah let's go to church you know and do you know what that's like there's nothing better in the world than that feeling there's nothing better in it and I just want I want you guys so much to see that and and unfortunately statistically most people won't but hopefully one person here can get a glimpse of what I'm saying and if you can get two or three people that to get a glimpse of that that's church see churches in some holy huddle you know we're just gonna be over here and we're gonna sing some songs and we're gonna you know have our little group and the world's dying going to hell we're not doing anything about it the church is people that are loving people they're caring for the world they're helping people come to Jesus and you know there was this little boy named Daz that I used to pick up D-A-Z that was his name the cutest little five-year-old black kid you've ever seen and his mom would move every three months she'd move into a house wouldn't pay rent for three months it'd take three months for them to evict her and then she'd move again and so I would tell her now listen when you move tell me the address you're gonna move to so I can pick Daz up there and she was you know strung out on crack all the time and she'd forget to tell me and it would take about two or three months and then finally you know he wouldn't be coming to church because I didn't know where to pick him up at and finally he'd be coming through the front door and I'd see him there you know pulling his mom behind him you know and she'd be you know being dragged into the church and yeah I forgot to give you my address you know and he just keeps telling me I won't go see mr. church man you know and so I found out where you know here's the address you know and this little five-year-old kid has this burden to go to church because he knows someone there loves him and do you know what that's like I mean to spend your life for somebody else to waste away your life on a Friday night not doing what you want to do but loving someone whom no one else loves and I just remember just always just driving down the road and just you know it's Friday night and everybody's all geared up to go out and live for the flesh and I can't wait to go see my bus kids and I just love this Lord I just love this that's life that's peace that's joy I remember going door-to-door one time and walking up this old house and just going up this raggedy staircase up this side of this attic basically they had rented out an attic like three stories up and knocking on this door and just about ready to leave that nobody even lives up here and all sudden the door opened and this 88 year old guy you know sticks his head out the door and I said hey sir do you know if you die today you go to heaven and what you know and come in and I went in and sat next sat down and let me get you some coffee and his name was Rudy he was in World War two he'd been through the Great Depression and I just sat there and listen to this guy for like two hours and then you know I mean I didn't really want to listen to the guy for two hours but this was the highlight of the guy's week just somebody is there you know and I'd come back hey I'll be back here next week to visit you and it became the highlight of his week somebody cares about him somebody wants to visit him and and then Rudy got real sick after you know years of visiting him he got put in a nursing home no family no relatives he just would sit in this nursing home and I remember you know in the middle of summer on a Saturday you know how that you just want to you know you don't have to work and you just want to find something fun to do and it's nice out everybody's got their convertible tops down and people are going swimming I remember making the decision not wanting to but making the decision oh I gotta go see Rudy and you know it can be pretty depressing walking into a nursing home on a Saturday in the middle of summer you know and you go in there and it's hot and stuffy it stinks and it's and just go sit down and hey Rudy how you doing bud you know and just listen you know to him and I'm thirsty they don't get me water they don't pay attention to me you know and then go over to the nurse can I please get some water for the guy give me some ice you know and just get him that ice and see him you know reach down in the thing and he's just like thirsty and he's just been neglected you know and I remember buying Rudy a little tape player and I bought him the Bible on tape you know and just here bud cuz he couldn't read listen to the Bible and just loving him and that is what 50% of Christianity is and if you don't have that you're missing 50% of Christianity what are the two greatest commands love God and love your neighbor in a practical way you know just like gate like not being ashamed of the gospel when you're at work being a light to people I'm not talking about just being a dork and like just you know like you're not working because you're like you know hey you're going to heaven when you die you know well here hand me my tool buddy you know forget the heaven thing you know you're not efficient at work because you're a Bible thumper I'm not talking about that but I'm talking about at the appropriate time in the appropriate way saying something and not being ashamed when I was 1921 22 I had the privilege of leading people that I worked with to Christ and then they would come and get baptized and be a part of the church and we'd have Bible study at work before work would start and you know I was bringing people to be baptized at this was like an old-school Baptist Church and and they weren't used to having people you know get saved and get baptized so they had this old mildewy baptistry that was never used you know and and so I would you know okay well I'll paint the baptistry you know needs got mold all over it I gotta bleach it I gotta paint it and I gotta get there on a Saturday night and fill up with water and put the heater in it and and this is what I consumed my time with you see if it was Monday night I was going to colleges talking to kids my age and Tuesday night going out and Wednesday night you know Bible study and Thursday night going out and my job whenever it would rain on like a day like today I couldn't do work and so they would call me at about you know 6 in the morning it's raining don't come in today and I loved that I loved when that would happen because then it was like oh I got the day off I'm gonna go down to Kent State I'm gonna go down to Akron University and I had printed up some pretty generic tracks that were relevant to the kids of my generation at the time and so I would take the day off and go down to the college and just talk with people and pass tracks out and and instead of you know I got the day off I can go work here and make more money I would spend that day you know telling people about Jesus and through all of this through all of these things I became more and more addicted you see then it then it kind of progressed into I want to have tracks that you know are colorful because you know black and white just is kind of boring and so I saved up and bought a computer you know this was 15 years ago when computers were like more expensive you know and I bought a full-color printer and I was only making you know peanuts but that's where my time money and energy went so I bought a printer I bought a computer and I designed tracks and I printed them and I cut them and I folded them and instead of going to the movies on a Friday and Saturday night my mom or my wife and I would go to the movie theaters and you know put tracks on the cars and we would go to amusement parks and we go to bars you know till 4 in the morning on a Friday and Saturday night just pleading with people you know just please God loves you he wants to save you you know here read this and and I want to show verse that kind of explains all this Romans chapter 9 and I don't want anybody to misunderstand me here okay I'm not saying that this is what you have to do okay I'm not saying it's God's will for you to do what I did I'm just sharing my testimony what I did you take what what I'm saying to heart and you apply it how God leads you to which may look totally different than how I have a lot of people are so hyper defensive about things you know well God's just not calling me to do that well God is calling you to love people he is calling you to preach the gospel however whenever wherever he's calling you to share Christ if you're a Christian you are called you don't need some esoteric supernatural experience of God saying hey go it's already in the scripture we don't even have to look at it because we all know the verses in Mark 16 and Matthew 28 and many others but that would be religion you know to sit here and show you these verses this is what God has called you to do you know and then you're you see it so you're doing it out of duty I don't want anybody to do something out of duty I don't want my wife to love me because she's my wife and she's supposed to love me here the Bible says love your husband you know I want my wife to love me because she loves me and the heart is the problem okay and Romans chapter 9 here gets to the heart he says here in verse 1 I speak the truth in Christ I'm not lying my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit I have a great sorrow and an unceasing anguish in my heart the King James says a great heaviness and a continual sorrow verse 3 for I could wish that I myself were cursed or cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers those who are of my race now let me ask you a serious question today you look at Romans chapter 9 verses 1 through 3 and ask yourself do you have at all can you relate at all to what Paul is even talking about just be honest with yourself I mean just be honest to say I don't have any kind of a sorrow for nobody I don't have a heaviness be honest it Christianity starts with being ruthlessly honest with yourself maybe you had this once and your heart has grown cold and you've kind of gotten a hard heart towards people maybe you tried to help people and they burnt you and you just kind of got this attitude of screw people you know I try to help them they don't want to listen okay fine be honest and just admit it but what I what I'm saying here is Romans chapter 9 verse 1 is sharing this is what God wants us to have a continual heaviness let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to heaviness see I can't relate to I don't know when when I was 19 20 21 22 there was this heaviness in my heart I didn't want to just hang around and just goof off all the time people were dying and going to hell and I had the answer and I wanted to tell them it I did not have time for meaningless things like there was a burden there there was a passion there something was driving me was constraining me and that's what Paul saying here I have this continual sorrow why for those of my own race and he's so serious about it he says if I could if I could die and go to hell so that these people would be saved I would I mean that's crazy if you think about it I wouldn't you know I mean I can't say that okay Lord send me to hell if it means all these people be saved I would just be like screw them you know I'm not going to hell but that's where Paul was and that's where I want to be I want to love people so much that I have no thought for my own life no thought for what's good for me so you know please hear please hear my heart in this you know what what who you worship is who you spend your time money energy things you meditate on the things that you look forward to that's who you worship and when when I was you know your age if you know if I had some overtime my thought process was oh cool I'll order some new Testaments you can get them for 80 you know 80 cents from bearing precious seed ministries and and I'll get a hundred of them you know that's 80 bucks or whatever and go down to the college and you know hey can I give you a New Testament just planting a seed here's the scriptures people are born again by the Word of God the Bible says and so just you know give some girl a New Testament she has never seen the New Testament she goes home throw throws it in the closet it sits there for two years her boyfriend breaks up with her she gets a you know pregnant maybe and she's contemplating an abortion you know eight months later and she's cleaning out her closet and oh there's that New Testament and God's Spirit draws her to read it and she reads it and comes to Christ just for 80 cents I like could bought a pop for 80 cents you see like what are you meditating on what are you spending your time thinking about planning like is there a discipline in your life to set aside time for other people whether it's going to a nursing home or helping an inner-city kid or going out evangelizing or whatever it is that you do are you doing it or is it me myself and I seven days a week well yeah my I bought my buddy a coffee at the coffee shop the other day no I'm like I'm talking about like setting aside time to to do something eternal when when I was 19 I had already been dating my my wife that I'm married to now I'd already been dating her for a long time and then I came to Christ and she came to Christ and she came from a Catholic background and her parents were pretty hardcore against us being married and they said you know they said no we don't want to have anything to do with you guys getting married we were both over 18 we could have legally got married I had Christians telling me it's okay to get married it's persecution you know because of the faith and and so we were gonna get married we had a date set and we had everything planned out where I was gonna live and everything and I was 19 you know and I wanted to get married like now and and so it was all ready to go you know so I but one night I got home and I just didn't have this I didn't have that peace that I was walking and just open heaven just joy I'd lost it was kind of like cloudy it was like Lord what's matter I just don't have peace about getting married show me what you want me to do and I just the Spirit of God came in the room in a real way and it was like God whatever you want me to do I'll do it just show me and and God just led me to open the scripture up and I just opened it up and it came open to Luke chapter 4 and he says the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel and it was just that clear God said I want you to preach the gospel and I was like okay that's cool but I want to get married too you know and God's no I want you to preach the gospel and her dad you know said you can't get married until she graduates and she wasn't even a freshman yet so we're looking at four years we were gonna and no in college she had just graduated from high school she had just graduated from high school in the spring and we were gonna get married that fall and we were like four weeks away and now I'm looking at four years you know like I was like gearing up for four weeks and now it's another four years which you know seemed like 50 years you know in my mind and God said okay spend the next four years just preaching the gospel so what I'm saying is you guys have this awesome opportunity with you being single and you have a freedom if you can discipline your life you can maximize the amount of hours that you have in a day you know I mean don't be sleeping 12 hours a day and don't be doing things you know and just such a half-hearted way you know just like just flippant and fickle about everything to where there's no method there's no structure it's just do this and then sleep until noon the next day and then do that a little bit and it's just kind of not there's no direction I mean when when you're young you can like get by sleeping four hours a day you know and and you don't have a wife and you don't have children and you don't have to work as much if you structure your life to lower the amount of money you have to make it's an awesome opportunity to spend your life living for other people you know and this is the way that that you know that I lived and then I got married and then the American dream deception you know set in on me and now you gotta have a house and you gotta make money and you gotta work to make more money and you gotta work more to make more money and you gotta buy this you gotta buy that and da da da da da and one morning you know I found myself not being able to do any of this stuff anymore and just sitting in front of a TV flipping the channels one night just empty depressed lonely defeated by lust by depression just sitting there flipping the channels flipping the channels and then I just walked out on the porch and I remember my wife was a bit in bed and I'm just sitting there on the porch and I'm just looking up at the stars and and God was just like what are you doing son what are you doing I was just like I don't know it's like stop doing this like this is a waste of time like you're wasting your life away and and so God has woken me up out of this slumber and it's a slumber it's a you know like the devil just tries to lost asleep into this rat race and what I'm saying is wake up it's a rat race and it's vanity it's what are you doing now that is going to have any significance in eternity you know don't store up treasures now store up treasures for eternity you know treasures that won't wax old and moth and you know dust of corrupt this is what Christ likenesses okay you cannot have Christ likeness without what I'm talking about you know what look at first Timothy real quick if we want to be like Jesus we have to follow in Jesus's footsteps first Timothy chapter 1 verse 15 here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief so if I'm gonna follow Jesus and Jesus came into the world for this purpose to to do what to save sinners if I'm gonna follow Jesus then what do I need to be doing saving sinners I mean it's real simple like that is Christ likeness you know a lot of people be like why just don't feel called to do that brother you're an evangelist that's what you are I'm called to work and make money and I can support missions you know that's the cop-out let's just be honest you don't want to go out and you like to make money and you can also give some of it to missions to ease your conscience so just let's call it what it is okay let's just be honest okay Jesus came into the world to save sinners if I'm gonna be like Jesus I want to be saving sinners now how I do that and how you do that may be different that's cool but are you saving sinners have you ever won a single soul to Christ in your whole life you know that the church in Korea they have a standard and I'm not saying I agree with this little unbiblical but if you haven't led a soul to Christ within the first year that you've come to Christ they start questioning if you really came to Christ okay now that's you know kind of legalistic okay but let's lower the standard there a little bit if you haven't witnessed to a person since you've come to Christ can we question if you've really come to Christ I mean why is it the most timid wife can go to an Italian restaurant and really like it and then be sitting in and you know with the group of friends and here over here her friends say you know yeah my husband and I are thinking about going on a date tonight but we don't know where to go oh you got to go to this place they have the best Italian food in the world and I'll tell you it's just and all sudden she's so bold you know about this restaurant but when you encourage her hey have you ever told someone about Jesus oh I'm I'm too timid for that you know why is that you see I think a lot of times it's because we've lost the reality that like we have an answer here what we have can save someone it can change the course of their entire life you know Paul said I'm not ashamed of the gospel ask yourself this question just be honest with yourself are you ashamed of the gospel do you feel like a dork when you try to talk to someone if you do it's okay just say I feel cheesy you know like I kind of feel like I'm corny or whatever word you may use like I know I do sometimes and I have to ask God to help me because I got it we be persuaded again that this is gonna set this person free if they you know if they'll listen to it I don't want to be so consumed with you know well I'm just trying to be all men to all things to all men brother okay fine be all things to all men but has anybody gotten saved as any lives been being changed or have you become ashamed of the gospel to where you're almost like apologetic about it you know they I mean they know you're a Christian you know but you don't want to like be too confrontational let's just be you know honest the Bible says in Acts 10 Jesus again we're talking about following Jesus Jesus went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil that's Christ likeness we want to go about doing good healing all those that are oppressed by the devil people need God people this country is miserable the average kid is sitting home and just flipping through a TV and displaying video games and empty and lonely and and girls have no love from their dad there's they're not feeling that intimacy from their dad so they seek for it and other men and they're being used and there's guilt and shame depression and just there's so much emptiness and sorrow in this country and you're supposed to have the answers and share them you know I mean suppose you had the cure for cancer you had it and you had it in little jars in your basement and all somebody had to do is drink one drop of that and their cancer was cured would you just happen to walk around with that jar in your pocket throughout your normal daily life and if you happened to cross the path of somebody that you heard had cancer oh yeah here by the way here's that drop oh yeah would you do that or would you maybe set aside time to go to a hospital and say here you know would you set aside time to maybe make a little piece of paper that said hey I have to cure for cancer or maybe you'd make a sign and go to the Royal Stadium and stand in front of it 80,000 people or whatever you're standing there hey I have to cure for cancer I mean you would do that for cancer but why wouldn't you do that for salvation which is wave it's way better than the cure for cancer see this this is the what the church is about you see and we can't lose this let me read this little parable here I think it drives the point home in context of what we're talking about with the church on a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little life-saving station the building was just a hut and there were only one boat but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea and with no thought for themselves they went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost many lives were saved by this wonderful little life-saving station so that it became famous some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding areas wanted to become associated with this station and give their time and money and effort to support its work new boats were bought and new crews were trained and the little life-saving station grew as the station grew visitors began to make comments on the primitive conditions of the station itself they had been to other stations and had seen how modern and advanced they were this caused some of the newer members of the station to murmur that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped they felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea the veterans had little interest in such trivial matters but to placate the newcomers they let them have their way eventually some of the members wanted a nicer place to retire to at night so they began to build nice houses for themselves to sleep in at night while they were not saving lives this required greater funds so they were forced to spend more and more time working to pay for these nice houses nice houses need new furniture appliances a two-car garage and a white picket fence which all cost more much more money so they changed their lifestyle to work more and more for the money and spend less and less time saving lives over time some of the crew chose to get married and so they did and became enamored with their spouses rescue missions placed great strain upon their relationships some of the members had to decline being on call to build up their spouses couple soon became parents and were eventually engulfed and at with the added responsibility of teaching their children reading writing and arithmetic these responsibilities hindered a number of available rescue operations slowly and subtly a teaching began to arise from among them not all of us are called to go out to sea and save the lost many of those who were engulfed into this self-centered lifestyle gravitated nicely to this teaching for it justified their present pathetic state as this time went on in the original focus of the life-saving station grew dimmer many of those who met at the club's weekly meetings began to bicker among each other it was not uncommon for there to be four new crew members coming in each month and three leaving they would split hairs over the tiniest things and will often split away to start clubs that had nothing to do with life-saving anymore about this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast and the staff brought in loads of wet cold half-drowned people many were dirty and sick some had a skin of a different color some spoke a strange language and the beautiful new club was considerably messed up the new members were forced to help because the need was so overwhelming to prevent this from happening again they decided a shower house needed to be built outside the club where the victims of shipwreck could be cleaned before coming inside at the time of the next meeting the more experienced lifesavers voice their concern about the direction of the life-saving station and many of the changes that had taken place this causes split in the club membership many of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities due to the risk of those who went out they were also concerned about the all the strange people coming in and how it would negatively affect their own children the most experienced members insisted that life-saving station was their primary purpose and pointed out hey we're still a life-saving station after all but they were finally voted down and alienated by those who felt judged and criticized fewer and fewer men responded when the distress calls came and even the hired staff members hardly went out eventually the few who were saving lives were forced to leave the life-saving station they moved down the coast a few miles and started a new life-saving station the above cycle happened to this station as well as years went by other rescue stations experienced the same changes that had occurred to the old they evolved into clubs and fundraising and organizations rescue responses itself eventually fell to the professional workers who were full-time the old mission station merged into an organized corporation dedicated to fund the rescue missions around the world special meetings were held to recruit full-time rescue workers foreign and famous rescuers were be scheduled to give their testimonies about the rescue work needed to take place far and abroad today if you visit that seacoast you will find a number of exclusive clubs along the shore several rescue museums and many souvenir shops shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters but now most of the people drown and see this is what we see the coast being this area you drive down the road and there's a lot of nice clubs but few people actually going out and saving souls living for others visiting the fatherless and the widows helping the poor and I'm not talking about helping the poor to continue to prolong the inevitable just giving somebody some food I'm talking about helping them in a practical way that leads in the Christ many many many clubs few life-saving stations so in closing let's look at first Corinthians chapter 15 and let's read verse 34 awake to righteousness and sin not for some have not the knowledge of God I speak this to your shame wait a minute Paul I mean that's a little judgmental there I speak this to your shame Paul is being compassionate here by saying wake up you have fallen asleep wake up there are people in your area that don't know God and I speak this to your shame there is a proper God-given shame that should come upon us when we realize that we have not lived the life that God has given us the gift of life that God has given us we have not lived it for his kingdom we have not been faithful stewards of what he's given us so my prayer today is that that you guys would get gripped with eternity like when you see that life is just a blink of an eye your life will be over before you even realize that you'll be married and then you'll have kids and then you'll be laying on a hospital bed looking up at your 50 year old kids and looking over at the screen as it slowly flatlining and then that it's gonna dawn on you like wow I'm 80 years old and I'm dying you know that feeling that you had when you were a freshman and at a high school and you thought man I'm gonna be in high school forever and all sudden you're graduated from high school that's what life's like it's just so fast and then it's over and then you're standing before God having to give an account for how you spent your life and if you can get a group of people that are gripped with that reality that life is a vapor and that I'm not I'm my body is not my own my life is not my own I'm bought with a price and God has commanded me to speak the gospel to help people to love other people to give my life for other people that it's not even an option every waking moment that I'm not doing you know the things that I have to do like work and eat and stuff like that I'm going to be living for other people if you can get a group of people committed to that that is a church that's a life-saving station and that's you know that's the heart you know these meetings this weekend a pure holy separated consecrated wholehearted group of people that want to show Jesus to a community and just having these meetings just to say who wants this who you know who here's the boat you know it's going off the shore who wants to get on board who's wanting to live a lifestyle like this who wants to redirect and restructure their lifestyle to live for other people to have daily fellowship with believers to have exhortation those that you know that are committed to that when they come together they become the body of Christ father I just asked that you would give us all ears to hear what your spirit is saying grant us repentance from apathy and slumber self-centeredness busyness doing much of nothing renew in each of us a vision of eternity a reality of heaven and hell and renew in each of us a simple childlike faith that the gospel is still able to save people that by speaking forth your word souls can be saved please manifest your will to those here that are praying about having a body make it clear we know that unless you build it's all in vain so make it clear if you're wanting to build something for Jesus sake we ask this