Everything is Futile Without Christ

You've got all these people that are searching. What are they looking for? You know, that's what goes on in people's minds. How can I make the next dollar? How can I get the prettier girlfriend? How can I get sexual gratification? How can I get what I want? How can I get that little white ball in that hole in fewer strokes? How can I improve my tennis game? How can I improve my lawn? How can I get that new scratch in the door of my car off there? How can I get a nicer car? How can I avoid getting old? How can I avoid getting to this nursing home? How can I get a nicer house? How, how, how? They're thinking, how can I have better relationships? How can I be more liked at work? How can I be more successful at work? And it's, you know where it leads in the end? Weeping, Christless eternity. It's futile, futile, futile! It's a life that leads nowhere. Everybody's looking for truth and for explanations to why the universe works the way it does. They're all searching for the meaning of life. Everybody looking, looking, looking. What makes life worthwhile? That's what it is. What makes it, you know, give me my thing. I'm going to be a race car driver. I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to be successful at this. I know how, I'm a great gardener. Or I'm a, you know, you fill in the blank. I've got beauty. I go to the gym and I've got big biceps. And where does it go? Look a hundred years ahead. Their soul's in hell. Their biceps are rotted in the grave. And God just says, it's futile. It's futile. People trying to, you know, let's put another Hubble, better than the Hubble telescope out there. Why? We're going to look out in the deepest realms and with all our scientists and all our knowledge and we're going to try to see back to the Big Bang and we're going to make sense of it all. And then they're in hell. And they die Christless and it's all hell. And it's all empty. All the theories, all the religions, all the gods, where does it lead to? Futility. I mean, think about it. Think about it. My dad was a farmer. He worked at GM, but he was a farmer. You think about this. You strategize how to plant the field. When am I going to plant it? How am I going to plant it? I'm going to have a tractor ready. I'm going to go out and I'm going to till that field. I'm going to haul in the fertilizer. And I'm going to make sure that the irrigation is in place. And I'm going to harvest that crop. And I'm going to grind that wheat. I'm going to make the bread. I'm going to set it on the table. I'm going to set the family down and we're going to eat. And then we die and we go to hell. And you say, you know, well, you're being awful graphic. You think about Donald Trump. Unless he repents, you can fight to have all your billions and be successful and make it to the president. Then you die and you go to hell. You can be religious. I decide I'm going to get religious. I'm going to start going to Grace Community Church. You can get impressed by the preaching, but you don't ever learn Christ. There's no reality. You play the hypocrite. And then what happens? You die. And you know what, it's more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you. The whole thing was futile. You sat in these... You see, so many religious people, they're thinking that they're building up the credit, but in the end, it's futile. You ever seen Catholics just pray their Hail Marys? It's just futile. It does no good for the soul. It leaves nothing for the soul. It's hollow. It's futile. It's aimless. It just leaves you in the end like a husk. Ruby and I saw it. We went on this cruise. Thank the Lord we had a balcony. We were able to spend lots of time in the room. Just be together for seven days. But we'd venture out. We'd venture out of the room and we'd look at people. The last day of the cruise, you should have seen the look on the people's faces. Empty. Hollow. Why? That's their heaven. And in the end, all the anticipation, all the places they were going to visit, all the stuff, it just left them empty. That's what this world does. It just takes from you, takes from you, takes from you. We saw a documentary on Mike Webster. You know who he was? Eighteen years professional football player who was a center for the Pittsburgh Steelers. You remember him? He's a guy. He got that whatever the football players are finding in their brains now. The world just takes from you. It took from him. All the people in Pittsburgh loved him. And then what happened? He lost his brain. He lost his mind. All that impact with the brain. Impact, impact, impact. It tears the cells apart. It releases this protein. It basically clogs up their brains. They can't think straight anymore. And then he had Super Bowl rings. And he died and went to hell. You think about what all of it's worth while. You've got people sitting in, they're going to go to their classes tomorrow and they're going to study. Why? So they can get a good job, then what? Another job. Typically, people change jobs every three years. Then what? Save up for retirement. Then what? Then one day you're going home on a wet road and you get in a head-on collision and you die and you go to hell. Brethren, that is what's happening all around us. Every single Christless life is futility. It ends in hell. It ends empty. Those lives out there, you know why they look empty at the end of life when they had 18 successful years in the NFL? You know why they look empty after seven days on a cruise and seeing some beautiful... We went diving. I was trying to talk underwater, just praising the Lord. It was so beautiful. And you know what? The day after we got back, I was out at Bracken Ridge walking along the side of the river praying and thinking on the Lord. And I'm thinking, I got to come home to this. This is glorious. Those people come... I saw one woman at the end of that cruise. The look on her face was like total devastation. Why? Because that's the way this world is. It just leaves you an empty husk. That's all. It promises you everything. And the devil's behind that. And it just leaves you empty. Empty. Feudal. Aimless. Nothing for the soul. Just futility. This excerpt was taken from the full sermon No Longer Perishing in Futility.